Beaumarchais Undertakes to Protect the Rights of Dramatic Authors--Lawsuit with the Comédie-Française--Founder of the First Society of Dramatic Authors--Jealousies Among Themselves Retard Success--National Assembly Grants Decree 1791--Final Form Given by Napoleon. While Beaumarchais was enjoying the triumph of his _Barbier de Séville_, his other affairs were by no means neglected. Very soon we shall have occasion to accompany him to London on one of the most singular missions of which it is possible to conceive. But before entering into a history of the political and financial operations into which Beaumarchais plunged after his return from Vienna, it is necessary to speak of the very important matter which the success of the _Barbier_ emboldened its author to undertake. As Beaumarchais possessed to such an extraordinary degree the power, as he himself has expressed it, _“de fermer le tiroir d’une affaire,”_ and instantly to turn the whole force of his mind into a totally different channel, we shall not be surprised to find him at one and the same time undertaking to protect the rights of dramatic authors against the comedians of the king; settling for Louis XVI a matter of occult diplomacy of the old king, Louis XV, which had dragged on for years, and which no one else had been able to adjust; working with unremitting zeal for his own rehabilitation as citizen; pursuing the interests of his suit with the Comte de la Blache, which was still in progress; leading a life in London and Paris which from the point of view of pleasure left little to be desired; and all the while engaged in constant and almost superhuman exertions to stir the French government out of its lethargy in regard to the insurgent American colonies, and later in sending the latter aid, under the very eyes of the English, exposed to constant danger of bankruptcy and ruin. Unlike Beaumarchais, we are unable to give our attention to so many things at the same time, and we are therefore forced to treat each action separately. Beginning then with his action against the comedians, it is necessary to state that the custom by which that ancient and highly honored institution the _Théâtre-Français_ regulated its accounts with the author whose plays were there produced, permitted of so much obscurity that no attempt was ever made to verify those accounts, so that all the authors practically were obliged to content themselves with whatever the comedians chose to give them.