Pierre de Beaumarchais

Pierre de Beaumarchais (1732-99), French playwright. Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was born in Paris. The son of a watchmaker, he became watchmaker to Louis XV and a court favorite. Young Caron married the widow of a court official in 1756 and took the name Beaumarchais. He bought the office of secretary to the king, which made him a nobleman. Subsequently he was employed in confidential missions by Louis XV and Louis XVI. During the American Revolution, Beaumarchais sold arms to the American colonies.

His literary fame rests on his two comedies, Le barbier de Seville (1775) and Le mariage de Figaro (1784). In these plays Beaumarchais satirized the French ruling class, reflecting the growing dissatisfaction with the nobility in the years preceding the French Revolution. The plays were made into popular operas, Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786) by Mozart and Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville, 1816) by the Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini.