Before the arrival of Deane the interests of the colonies had been already taken in hand and substantially advanced in France by one of the most extraordinary characters in history. Caron de Beaumarchais was a man whom no race save the French could produce, and whose traits, career, and success lie hopelessly beyond the comprehension of the Anglo-Saxon. Bred a watchmaker, he had the skill, when a mere youth, to invent a clever escapement balance for regulating watches; had he been able to insert it into his own brain he might have held more securely his elusive good fortunes. From being an ingenious inventor he became an adventurer general, watchmaker to the king, the king's mistresses, and the king's daughters, the lover, or rather the beloved, of the wife of the controller of the king's kitchen, then himself the controller, thence a courtier, and a favorite of the royal princesses. Through a clever use of his opportunities he was able to do a great favor to a rich banker, who in return gave him chances to amass a fortune, and lent him money to buy a patent of nobility. This connection ended in litigation, which was near ruining him; but he discovered corruption on the part of the judge, and thereupon wrote his Memorials, of which the wit, keenness, and vivacity made him famous. He then rendered a private, personal, and important service to Louis XV., and soon afterwards another to the young Louis XVI. His capacity for secret usefulness gave him further occupation and carried him much to London. There he wrote the "Barber of Seville," and there also he fell in with Arthur Lee and became indoctrinated with grand notions of the resources and value of the colonies, and of the ruin which their separation must inflict upon England. Furthermore, as a Frenchman he naturally consorted with members of the opposition party who took views very favorable to America. With such corroboration of Lee's statements, Beaumarchais, never moderate in any sentiment, leaped to the conclusion that the colonies "must be invincible," and that England was "upon the brink of ruin, if her neighbors and rivals were but in a state to think seriously of it." At once the lively and ambitious fancy of the impetuous Frenchman spread an extravagant panorama of the possibilities thus opened to England's "natural enemy." He became frenzied in the American cause. In long and ardent letters he opened upon King Louis and his ministers a rattling fire of arguments sound and unsound, statements true and untrue, inducements reasonable and unreasonable, forecastings probable and improbable, policies wise and unwise, all designed to show that it was the bounden duty of France to adopt the colonial cause. The king, with no very able brain at any time, was very young and wholly inexperienced. He gazed bewildered at the brilliant pageantry of Beaumarchais's wonderful and audacious statecraft, and sensibly sought the advice of his ministers.