9 Pierre-Auguste Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–99), famous wit, financier, and literary celebrity of the late eighteenth century. Beaumarchais was best known as the author of two hugely successful comedies, The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. The second was for a time banned for its perceived antiauthoritarian sentiments, which shocked Louis XVI. The hero of these two plays, the witty and slightly
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Tiger
An English traveler tells how he lived on familiar terms with a tiger: he had raised it, and he stroked it, but on his table he always kept a fully loaded pistol. Julien surrendered himself to the heights of happiness only when Mathilde could not see the expression in his eyes. He did his duty with dedication, from time to time saying harsh things to her. Any time Mathilde's gentle sweetness, which he watched, astonished, and his suddenly swelling devotion came close to making him lose control, he had the courage to brusquely turn away and leave her. It was the first time Mathilde had ever been in love. Life had always dragged along, for her, at a tortoiselike pace; now, it flew. But since her pride had to somehow manifest itself, she tried to fearlessly expose herself to all the risks her love could create. Julien was the cautious one, and only when risks were involved would she refuse to let him make the decisions. Submissive and even humble as she was with him, she was even haughtier with everyone who came near her, whether family or servants. In the evening, in the drawing room, surrounded by sixty people, she would call Julien over to talk to him alone, and for extended periods. Little Tanbeau having come and seated himself beside her, one day, she asked him to go hunt for her, in the library, the book by Smollett10 in which he discusses the British Revolution of 1688. When he hesitated: "Don't rush yourself," she added, with an arrogantly insulting look that was balm to Julien's soul. "Did you notice the little monster's face?" he told her. "His uncle had ten or twelve years of service, in this drawing room; otherwise I'd get rid of him on the spot." Her conduct toward Messieurs de Croisenois, de Lutz, etc., though in form perfectly polite, was at bottom scarcely less provoking. Mathilde seriously reproached herself, on account of the amatory confidences she had once made to Julien—even more so because, though she did not dare tell him this, she had exaggerated the almost entirely innocent signs of interest of which these gentlemen had been the object. For all her good resolutions, her womanly pride kept her from ever saying to Julien: "It was talking to you: that's why I took such pleasure, describing my weakness in not withdrawing, that once, when Monsieur de Croisenois put his hand on a marble table and it just barely brushed against mine." Now these gentlemen could barely speak to her for a few moments when, suddenly, she simply had to ask Julien a question, and made that an excuse to keep him near her. She realized she was pregnant, and joyfully told this to Julien. "Can you doubt me, now? Isn't this a guarantee? I am your wife forever." This news profoundly astonished Julien. He was at the point of forgetting the principles of his behavior toward her. "How can I be willingly cold and rude to this poor young girl, who is ruining herself for me?" When she seemed the least bit indisposed, even on days when wisdom's awful voice made itself heard, he no longer had the courage to address those cruel remarks to her—words so indispensable, as he had learned, for the preservation of their love.
roguish Figaro, quickly became fixed in the French national imagination. Both plays inspired operas, better known to Anglophone audiences than the plays that inspired them.