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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Only in a few favored instances did Beaumarchais' minor poems rise to the level of true poetry. Yet it would be a misconception of their significance and historical value to decry them as devoid of importance. They illustrate his talent for improvisation, the causticity of his ready wit; they unveil the complex character of this man, who, by some, was villified as a daring and unscrupulous adventurer, and acclaimed by others as “bon père, bon mari, bon maître, ami sincère.” Ever alert in pugnacious attack or cautious defense, his irrepressible and scintillating repartee reminds one of the flash of a stiletto striking with an almost invisible but mortal wound. Everywhere in his Mémoires and plays this pungency flavors the dusty records of practical contentions or a romantic intrigue and even his minor poems are not devoid of it.
1 From a quatrain by Gudin de la Brenellerie for Beaumarchais' portrait. Cf. E. Lintilhac, Beaumarchais, 1887.
2 See on this Lintilhac, op. cit. the second part.
3 Ed. Gudin, 1809, VII, 153.
4 See, for instance, A. Bettelheim, Beaumarchais, eine biographie, 1886 and E. Lintilhac, op. cit.
5 In 1883, Henri Cordier in his Bibliographie de Beaumarchais (Appendix) revealed an unknown Chanson à mes Amis. Paul Bonnefon added a variant version of the Galerie des Femmes and pointed out that an anonymous song which had already appeared in Raunie's Chansonnier historique du dix huitième Siècle must be ascribed to Beaumarchais: “Chanson de M. de Beaumarchais qui l'a présentée au Roi et à la Reine. See P. Bonnefon, Beaumarchais 1887.
6 He prints an Impromptu of four lines which Beaumarchais wrote at the age of seventeen (p. 20). On p. 73 he gives a letter to Wilkes partly in verse. He refers to unpublished poems on p. 32, note 6: translations from Tibullus; on p. 57, note 7, an epigram; on p. 123, note 1, a short poem addressed to Talleyrand; on p. 131, note 1, verses on the new invention of the Velocifêre; on p. 131, Chanson pour l'anniversaire d'Eugénie. de Loménie, Beaumarchais et son temps, 1856, vol. II, p. 522, printed a Romance qui doit être chantée lentement et avec un grand sentiment, which seems from Beaumarchais' hand.
7 In this manuscript are also found other unpublished poems, for instance of Gresset. See my article “Unpublished poems of Gresset” in Modern Philology.
8 See Lintilhac, op. cit., p. 108 and Oeuvres de Beaumarchais, ed. Fournier, p. 663: Réponse à l'ouvrage qui a pour titre: Sur les Actions de la Comp. des Eaux de Paris.
9 This pamphlet appeared on February 20, 1787. Cf. Mémoires sur Mirabeau, 1823, III, 83 sq. Two answers were published: Rulhières.—Considerations sur la dénonciation de l'Agiotage.—and, Anon.—Réponse à M. le Comte de Mirabeau sur sa Dénonciation de l'Agiotage et à l'Auteur des Considérations sur le même ouvrage.
10 Recueil d'Epigrammes, p. 133.
11 Ibid., p. 136.
12 See, Biographie Gem. Michaud.—Querard, Suppl. II, p. 119.—After the Revolution he became a magistrate and later Pair de France.
13 Erased MS correction: N'es-tu pas l'heureux possesseur?
14 Goezman in his Mémoire against Beaumarchais says: Le sieur Caron emprunta d'une de ses femmes le nom de Beaumarchais qu'il a prêté à une de ses soeurs.—Cited by Loménie, I, p. 90.
15 Cf. de Loménie.—I, Chap. XIV.
16 The booklet by Julie de Beaumarchais has been ascribed to a certain Demandre by the Biogr. Gén. Mich. but de Loménie testifies that the manuscript is in her handwriting. She speaks of her book in her correspondence and in her will. De Loménie, I, p. 64-65, and p. 371 gives verses by her. See, also Lintilhac, op. cit., p. 5.