“The richest of the dramatic authors,” says Loménie, “Beaumarchais, for whom the theater had never been anything but a form of recreation, and who had made a present of his first two plays to the comedians, could not be taxed with cupidity in taking in hand the cause of his brothers of the pen. This is what determined him. We soon shall see him defending, for the first time, the rights of others more than his own, and hazarding himself in a new combat against adversaries more difficult to conquer than those against whom he had fought already; he will conquer nevertheless, but not for many years, and only with the aid of the Revolution will he succeed in getting the better of the kings and queens of the theater, in restraining the cupidity of the directors, and in establishing the rights of authors, until this time so unjustly despoiled. “To the end of his life he did not cease to demand that the law surround with its protection a kind of property, no less inviolable than other forms, but before his fervid pleadings, completely sacrificed. “The society of dramatic authors to-day so powerful, so strongly organized, which rightly, or wrongly is sometimes accused of having replaced the tyranny of the actors and directors of the theatre by a tyranny exactly the reverse, do not know perhaps all they owe to the man who was the first to unite into a solid body the writers who up to that time had lived entirely isolated.” Beaumarchais had long lived on terms of intimacy with the comedians of the _Théâtre-Français_; that he continued to do so during the years when his suit against them was in progress, is proved by the following letter from Mlle. Doligny, written in 1779. The letter to which she alludes was in relation to his drama, _Les Deux Amis_, which he very much desired to have brought a second time before the public. The piece, it will be remembered, had never succeeded in Paris. Beaumarchais professed a special fondness for it, however, and desired now to have it revived. The letter of Mlle. Doligny is as follows: “Monsieur: I do not know how to thank you enough for all that you said of me in the letter which you wrote to the _Comédie_ on the subject of _Les Deux Amis_. All my comrades were enchanted with the gaiety and _esprit_ which shone in your letter. I was more enchanted than anyone, because of your friendship and goodness to me.” Then follows a special request in regard to two friends, after which she terminates thus: “It is your Eugénie, your Pauline, your Rosine, who solicits this; I dare hope that you will pay some attention to their recommendations. Receive the testimony of esteem, of attachment and of gratitude with which I am for life, Monsieur, your, etc. Doligny.”