at perhaps you will be twenty years
hence." The word "citizen" sounded strange in 1774; it was soon to
become familiar.

Before this incident Beaumarchais had produced two dramas, _Eugenie_
and _Les Deux Amis_, of the tearful, sentimental, bourgeois type,
yet with a romantic tendency, which distinguishes at least _Eugenie_
from the bourgeois drama of Diderot and of Sedaine. The failure of
the second may have taught their author the wisdom of mirth; he
abandoned his high dramatic principles to laugh and to evoke laughter.
_Le Barbier de Seville_, developed from a comic opera to a comedy
in five acts, was given, after long delays, in 1775. The spectators
manifested fatigue; instantly the play reappeared in four acts,
Beaumarchais having lost no time in removing the fifth wheel from
his carriage. It delighted the public by the novelty of its abounding
gaiety, a gaiety full and free, yet pointed with wit, a revolving
firework scattering its dazzling spray. The old comic theme of the
amorous tutor, the charming pupil, the rival lover, adorned with the
prestige of youth, the intriguing attendant, was renewed by a dialogue
which was alive with scintillating lights.

From the success of the _Barbier_ sprang _Le Mariage de Figaro_.
Completed in 1778, the royal opposition to its performance was not
overcome until six years afterwards. By force of public opinion the
watchmaker's son had triumphed over the King. The subject of the play
is of a good tradition--a daring valet disputes the claim of a
libertine lord to the possession of his betrothed. Spanish colour
and Italian intrigue are added to the old mirth of France. From Regnard
the author had learnt to entangle a varied intrigue; from Lesage he
borrowed his Spanish costumes and decoration--Figaro himself is a
Gil Blas upon the stage; in Marivaux he saw how women may assert
themselves in comic action with a bright audacity. The _Mariage de
Figaro_ resumes the past; it depicts the present, as a social satire,
and a painting of manners; it conveys into art the experience, the
spirit, the temerity of Beaumarchais's adventurous life as a man of
the world; it creates characters--Almaviva, Suzanne, Figaro himself,
the budding Cherubin. It is at the same time--or, rather, became
through its public reception--a pamphlet in comedy which announces
the future; it ridicules the established order with a sprightly
insolence; it pleads for social equality; it exposes the iniquity
of aristo