inister's enemies, saw with delight that the
expedients of those from whom alone new resources might be expected were
gradually becoming exhausted, because the period when the Archbishop of
Toulouse would be placed over the finances was thereby hastened.

The royal navy had resumed an imposing attitude during the war for the
independence of America; glorious peace with England had compensated for
the former attacks of our enemies upon the fame of France; and the throne
was surrounded by numerous heirs. The sole ground of uneasiness was in
the finances, but that uneasiness related only to the manner in which they
were administered. In a word, France felt confident in its own strength
and resources, when two events, which seem scarcely worthy of a place in
history, but which have, nevertheless, an important one in that of the
French Revolution, introduced a spirit of ridicule and contempt, not only
against the highest ranks, but even against the most august personages. I
allude to a comedy and a great swindling transaction.

Beaumarchais had long possessed a reputation in certain circles in Paris
for his wit and musical talents, and at the theatres for dramas more or
less indifferent, when his "Barbier de Seville" procured him a higher
position among dramatic writers. His "Memoirs" against M. Goesman had
amused Paris by the ridicule they threw upon a Parliament which was
disliked; and his admission to an intimacy with M. de Maurepas procured
him a degree of influence over important affairs. He then became
ambitious of influencing public opinion by a kind of drama, in which
established manners and customs should be held up to popular derision and
the ridicule of the new philosophers. After several years of prosperity
the minds of the French had become more generally critical; and when
Beaumarchais had finished his monstrous but diverting "Mariage de Figaro,"
all people of any consequence were eager for the gratification of hearing
it read, the censors having decided that it should not be performed.
These readings of "Figaro" grew so numerous that people were daily heard
to say, "I have been (or I am going to be) at the reading of
Beaumarchais's play." The desire to see it performed became universal; an
expression that he had the art to use compelled, as it were, the
approbation of the nobility, or of persons in power, who aimed at ranking
among the magnanimous; he made his "Figaro" say that "none but little
minds dr