Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de 1732-99
French playwright

Born in Paris, the son of a watchmaker, he was brought up in his father's trade, and invented, at 21, a new escapement which was pirated by a rival. The affair brought him to notice at court, where his good looks and fine speech and manners quickly procured him advancement. He was engaged to teach the harp to Louis XV's daughters, and made a fortune through two judicious marriages and profitable speculation with Duverney, a rich Parisian banker. His first plays, Eug�nie (1767, Eng trans The School for Rakes, 1769) and Les Deux Amis (1770, Eng trans The Two Friends, 1800), were only moderately successful, and he made his reputation with M�moires du Sieur Beaumarchais par lui-m�me (1774-78, 'Autobiography'), a work which united the bitterest satire with the sharpest logic. The same brilliant satire burns in his two famous comedies, Le Barbier de S�ville (1775, Eng trans The Barber of Seville, 1776) and La Folle journ�e ou le mariage de Figaro (1784, Eng trans The Follies of a Day; or, The Marriage of Figaro, 1785). The latter had a most unprecedented success, but the Revolution cost Beaumarchais his vast fortune, and, suspected of an attempt to sell arms to the �migr�s, he had to take refuge in Holland and England (1793).

Bibliography: R Pomeau, Beaumarchais, l'homme et l'?uvre (1956)