jealousy, that man formed to stir up strife, enmity, and every evil passion, who spent his whole existence in a broil-Arthur Lee. He, too, had the advantage of being already on the safe side of the Atlantic, and had been for several months in the service of the Secret Committee in London.

Three days after the election of the three commissioners arrived Mr. Thomas Story, with letters from Deane, Dumas, and Arthur Lee, and bearing in his memory intelligence too precious to be intrusted to paper. That this intelligence may be understood, we must return to France, and enter the council chamber of Versailles, the secret cabinet of the Count de Vergennes, and, perhaps, the boudoir of the young queen, Marie Antoinette.

CHAPTER VII.

HOW FRANCE CAME TO HELP AMERICA.

THERE is in the heart of old Paris an extensive edifice called the Hotel de Hollande, which was built in the reign of Louis XIV. for the residence of the Dutch embassador. In August, 1776, this building, which had been for some time unoccupied, was observed, by the frequenters of the Rue Vieille du Temple, to exhibit the usual signs of again being inhabited. Not that any embassador's carriage rumbled under the sculptured gateway into the ancient court-yard. It soon became evident to the most careless passer-by, that this Hotel, wherein had been represented the majesty of Holland in Holland's palmy days, had been taken by a mercantile firm as a house of business. It was formerly an affectation of great commercial houses in Europe to occupy insignificant edifices, and to dispense with all but the most unobtrusive signs. The firm who had taken the Hotel de Hollande had apparently escaped the domination of a pride so intense, and seemed desirous of even parading the fact, that the new occupants were no other than the great Spanish house of RODERIQUE HORTALEZ AND CO.

Spanish the name was certainly; but, if any observant Parisian

had ventured into the rooms of the Hotel appropriated to business, he would have recognized the clerks as Frenchmen and fellow-citizens; and if any Spaniard had asked to see the head of the House, he would have been most politely, but most positively, informed that the Señor Hortalez was not then in Paris. The Señor Hortalez never was in Paris. Whoever called, whatever the urgency of business, no Señor Hortalez was ever known to appear in the office of the Hotel de Hollande. It is only with the representative of that great man that we have to do. In an inner office, furnished with heterogeneous elegance, that representative was often to be found; a tall, slender, fresh-complexioned man of forty-four, who conveyed to strangers the impression that he was in reality a fop and man of pleasure, who, for some reason or other, was playing the man of business. This impression would have been confirmed if the visitor had observed that, among the ledgers and other apparatus of the counting-house, there were play-books, billet-doux, riding-whips, music, and musical instruments. The air of the place, the manner of the man, were all that is comprehended in the word, so terrible in the haunts of commerce-" unbusiness-like." It was nevertheless true, that this incongruous person represented the whole dignity, and wielded all the power and resources of the imposing firm of Roderique Hortalez and Co.

To the gay world of Paris no name was more familiar than that of the individual we have described. It was Caron de Beaumarchais, who, last year, had brought out at a Paris theatre one of the most successful of modern comedies, the Barber of Seville, still familiar, through Rossini's music, to all Europe and all America. This was the man who, in August, 1776, in a parlor of the Hotel de Hollande, relieved the monotony of business by trying new airs on the harp, or noting down ideas for scenes in a comedy, and gave audience, by turns, to men of business and men of fashion.

It belongs to our subject to show why M. de Beaumarchais, the dramatist and courtier, had transferred his services to a countingroom, and what was the nature of the business transacted by a firm that had every appearance of being "eminent," but which no merchant in Paris knew any thing about.

Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, born in 1732, was the son of a Paris watchmaker of no great note. He was himself brought up to the same vocation, and worked in his father's shop

till he was twenty-four years of age, when he washed his hands, changed his clothes, became a frequenter of the court of Louis XV., and, of the king's four daughters, a kind of associate. This startling change of condition was effected by Beaumarchais acting upon that silver rule of morals, Never to submit to a wrong while there is left one honorable mode of redress. The gallant observance of this maxim brought him all the good fortune he ever enjoyed. At the age of twenty, being, like his father, an enthusiast in his craft, and most eager to excel, he invented an improvement in escapements, by which it became possible to make watches of extreme minuteness, as well as of superior accuracy. In the joy of his discovery, he communicated the new principle to a neighbor, a watchmaker of great repute, who immediately used the invention in a clock which he was making, and announced it in a newspaper as an idea of his own. The youthful inventor was upon him straight. In a letter to the same newspaper, written with equal spirit and modesty, the youth related the story of his invention and of his imparting the secret. A contest arose between the watchmaker, famous and rich, and this unknown lad, who had only the advantage of being in the right, and of being able to say so in an engaging manner. Beaumarchais humbly referred the dispute to the Academy of Sciences, apologizing for his audacity in having succeeded in doing what so many older and abler watchmakers had attempted in vain. "Instructed I have been by my father," he said, "from the age of thirteen in the art of watchmaking; and animated by his example and advice to occupy myself seriously in endeavoring to perfect the art, it will not appear surprising that, when only nineteen, I tried to distinguish myself in it, and to entitle myself to the esteem of the public. Escapements were the first objects of my attention. To do away with their existing defects, simplify them, and perfect them-such was the aim which excited my ambition. My enterprise was doubtless a rash one: so many great men, whom the application of an entire life will probably not render me capable of equaling, had worked at it without ever arriving at the point so much desired, that I ought not to have flattered myself I should ever succeed. But youth is presumptuous; and shall I not be excusable, gentlemen, if your approbation crowns my work ?"*

* "Beaumarchais and his Times," by M. de Louménie, chap. ii. VOL. II.-8

The Academy decided in his favor. The contest had attracted attention, and the sympathies of all were on the side of the ingenious youth. One of the results of his victory was, that he was appointed watchmaker to the king.

Now, this Beaumarchais, who knew so well how to assume the air of modest, injured innocence, had, in reality, a most excellent opinion of himself. He was one of those who, from an inch of opportunity, gain an ell or a mile of advantage. He made a watch upon his new principle for the king, which he was allowed to present in person, and the idle monarch was pleased with his new toy. Quick to improve his opportunity, he soon completed the smallest watch in existence, which he affixed to a finger-ring, and presented to the king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Her approving smile made it the fashion at court to order a watch of the new construction, and the young "artist," as he styled himself, was perplexed with the multitude of orders. Nor did the favor of Pompadour exclude him from the presence of the king's daughters, for whom he made ingenious clocks and watches, and who were pleased with the vivacity, the wit, the assurance, and the agreeable countenance of the young watchmaker. One of them even took lessons from him in his art; a fact of some interest in view of Louis Sixteenth's taste for making locks. Watchmaking, we may remark, has always ranked very high among the trades of Paris; no Parisian could regard with indifference the most elegant and skillful watchmaker of his time.

The retinue of a French king, under the old regime, consisted of several thousand persons, a large number of whom bought their places, and with their places the rank of noble. Montesquieu says: "The king of France has no gold mines like the king of Spain, his neighbor, but he has far greater wealth in the vanity of his subjects, which is more inexhaustible than any mine. He has been known to undertake or continue a war without any resources but the titles of honor which he had to sell, and, owing to a miracle of human conceit, his troops were paid, his towns fortified, and his fleet equipped." It would not, therefore, have been difficult for Beaumarchais to turn courtier-watchmaker that he was. He had but to save a few thousand francs, and buy the place of shoe-buckler-in-ordinary to his most Christian Majesty, to be set up for life in that noble profession. But the entrance of Beaumarchais into the court of

Louis XV. was effected in a manner more romantic. The beautiful wife of a controller of the king's kitchen fell in love with him, brought him a watch to mend, blushed, and caused the susceptible artist to claim the honor of bringing home the watch as soon as he had repaired it. The result was, that in the course of a few months the aged husband of this amorous lady, in consideration of an annuity guaranteed by the father of Beaumarchais, resigned his office in favor of the young man. He died soon after, and Beaumarchais married the widow, who had some fortune. The duty of his office was to march with his sword at his side, "before his majesty's meat," and place it on the table. The salary was three hundred dollars a year; but the chances which the post afforded to a man like Beaumarchais were worth a million. It gave him all he needed-access to the court. Audacity, talent, accomplishments, were his already. His first success was in winning the marked favor of the king's four daughters, who were glad of any thing that could relieve the tedium of their hopeless magnificence. Beaumarchais, from childhood, had been so devoted to music, that his father, fearing he would never become proficient in the noble art of watchmaking, had often threatened to deprive him of his musical instruments. The terrible threat was not executed, and the youth learned to sing well, to compose tolerably, and to play admirably on the flute, the violin, and the harp. The harp, which was then little known in France, becoming at length his favorite instrument, he acquired a certain celebrity in court and city circles by the force and elegance of his playing. The princesses, who studied every thing, and played all instruments from the jews-harp to the French horn, desired to hear perform the young man, from whom already they had heard expositions of the mysteries of clockwork. He played before them. They asked him to give them lessons. He conducted the weekly concert which they were accustomed to give to the king and queen and a few friends. He became the indispensable Beaumarchais, director-general of the pleasures of the princesses, enjoying the favor and, in a certain sense, the intimacy, of the whole royal family. And all this, not as the paid servant, but as the fine gentleman, and gallant, devoted, disinterested courtier.

He bore his new honors not too meekly, it appears. He had enemies, but he knew how to meet and baffle them. A courtier, who had boasted that he would disconcert the protégé of the