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 Blas’ of Lesage in that, while it was seemingly Spanish in its scenes, it was in reality essentially French.  It contained one of the strongest characters in literature,—­Figaro, a reincarnation of the intriguing servant of Menander and Plautus and Moliere.  Simple in plot, ingenious in incident, brisk in dialogue, broadly effective in character-drawing, ‘The Barber of Seville’ is the most famous French comedy of the eighteenth century, with the single exception of its successor from the same pen, which appeared nine years later.

During those years Beaumarchais was not idle.  Like Defoe, he was always devising projects for money-making.  A few months after ’The Barber of Seville’ had been acted, the American Revolution began, and Beaumarchais was a chief agent in supplying the Americans with arms, ammunition, and supplies.  He had a cruiser of his own, Le Fier Roderigue, which was in D’Estaing’s fleet.  When the independence of the United States was recognized at last, Beaumarchais had a pecuniary claim against the young nation which long remained unsettled.