Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Beaumarchais wrote the play that Napoleon called the revolution already in action, and ran the front company that armed the Americans. He was a watchmaker's son who invented an escapement at twenty-one, had it stolen by a court horologist, won the case, and used the notoriety to get to Versailles as a music teacher to the king's daughters. He then made a fortune, lost it in litigation, and turned the lawsuits into published memoirs that made him famous for mocking the courts in print. The Barber of Seville reached the stage in 1775. The Marriage of Figaro was written soon after and banned for years; Louis XVI read it and said the Bastille would have to be pulled down before it could be performed, which turned out to be roughly the order of events. It was staged in 1784 and ran to packed houses. What makes it seditious is not a programme but a servant who is cleverer than his master and says so - Figaro telling the count he has taken more trouble to survive than the count has taken to rule a province. In 1776 Vergennes needed a way to arm the American rebels while France was formally neutral, and Beaumarchais supplied it: Roderigue Hortalez et Compagnie, a trading house that existed to move muskets, powder and artillery across the Atlantic on French and Spanish money. Most of the powder used at Saratoga came through it. Congress never properly paid him and the claim was still being argued by his heirs decades after his death. He was imprisoned briefly during the Terror, exiled, and died in Paris in 1799.
- Lived: 1732 CE – 1799 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: writer, politician
