he French
stage, were seeking a new dramatic formula in which they might treat
pathetic situations of modern life; and it is due largely to their
efforts that the modern "play" or "drama," the story of every-day
existence, has been evolved. The first dramatic attempt of Beaumarchais
was a drama called 'Eugenie,' acted at the Theatre Francais in 1767, and
succeeding just enough to encourage him to try again. The second, 'The
Two Friends,' acted in 1770, was a frank failure. For the pathetic,
Beaumarchais had little aptitude; and these two serious efforts were of
use to him only so far as their performance may have helped him to
master the many technical difficulties of the theatre.

Beaumarchais had married a second time in 1768, and he had been engaged
in various speculations with the financier Paris-Duverney. In 1770 his
wife died, and so did his associate; and he found himself soon involved
in lawsuits, into the details of which it is needless to go, but in the
course of which he published a series of memoirs, or statements of his
case for the public at large. These memoirs are among the most vigorous
of all polemical writings; they were very clever and very witty; they
were vivacious and audacious; they were unfailingly interesting; and
they were read as eagerly as the 'Letters of Junius.' Personal at first,
the suits soon became political; and part of the public approval given
to the attack of Beaumarchais on judicial injustice was due no doubt to
the general discontent with the existing order in France. His daring
conduct of his own cause made him a personality. He was intrusted with
one secret mission by Louis XV; and when Louis XVI came to the throne,
he managed to get him again employed confidentially.

Not long after his two attempts at the serious drama, he had tried to
turn to account his musical faculty by writing both the book and the
score of a comic opera, which had, however, been rejected by the
Comedie-Italienne (the predecessor of the present Opera Comique). After
a while Beaumarchais cut out his music and worked over his plot into a
five-act comedy in prose, 'The Barber of Seville.' It was produced by
the Theatre Francais in 1775, and like the contemporary 'Rivals' of
Sheridan,--the one English author with whom Beaumarchais must always be
compared,--it was a failure on the first night and a lasting success
after the author had reduced it and rearranged it. 'The Barber of
Seville' was like the 'Gil Bl