#eugénie beaumarchaise

[nordleuchten]

24 Days of La Fayette: December 12th - André Toussaint Delarûe

And we continue our inquiry with one of La Fayette’s French aide-de-camps. He was born in 1768 in France and served La Fayette during his time as commander of the National Guard. Let me tell you, La Fayette knew only praise for Delarûe service. He wrote Alexander Hamilton on December 8, 1797:

His brother [in-law] delarûe, my aide de camp in the national guards one of the cleverest & best young men I ever knew, has married beaumarchais’s daughter—both he & his brother in law are to divide between themselves the payement of the Sums which in the united States are düe to the young lady’s father.

“To Alexander Hamilton from Marquis de Lafayette, 8 December 1797,” Founders Online, National Archives, [Original source: The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 21, April 1797 – July 1798, ed. Harold C. Syrett. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974, pp. 325–326.] (10/03/2022)

This letter will not only serve us a character assessment but also as the starting point to take a deep dive in some international affairs. Delarûe was the brother of Julie Delarûe. Julie had married Mathieu Dumas. Dumas was a French officer who had fought in the American War of Independence and who had helped organize the National Guard. He was a noted defender of La Fayette’s against allegation of royalist tendencies. Dumas fled France to Hamburg, Lehmkuhlen and Tremsbüttel, among others and even pretended for a time to be a Danish citizen by the name of Elias Funck. After his return to France, he re-entered the army and rose through the ranks.

Delarûe himself married Eugénie Beaumarchaise on July 11, 1796. Eugénie was the only child of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais and his third wife Marie-Thérèse de Willer-Mawlaz. He also had a son, Augustine, by his second wife Geneviève-Madeleine Lévêque (née Wattebled.) But Augustine died young in 1772. Therefore, Eugénie became his sole heiress and after her marriage to André-Toussaint Delarûe, he came Beaumarchais heir and executer.

Now, Beaumarchais was many, many things during his lifetime but he is perhaps best remembered for his works as a librettist, playwriter, author and dramatist. He was also an early supporter of the American Revolution and organized secret French schemes up to a year prior to France’s formal entry in the War. Beaumarchais invested his own money into these schemes and later demanded a compensation from the American government. After his death in 1799, the struggle was continued by his son-in-law Delarûe and Delarûe’s brother-in-law Dumas.

La Fayette was quite invested in Delarûe’s claims and wrote several letters on his behalf. He wrote Thomas Jefferson on November 11, 1800:

As I’ll Have By this Opportunity the pleasure to Write to You, I shall Now only Mention the Affair of M. de BeauMarchais Which You Better know than I do—His Claims Have Been InHerited By a former Aid de Camp of Mine Who Married Beau-Marchais’s daughter and Whose Sister is a Wife to General Dumas the Chief of the Staff in the Middle Army—My Attachement to My two Companions Makes it a duty for me to Give them the Recommendation Which they Have Requested (…) You Have known Mathieu Dumas in the beggining of the french Revolution, and it is probable You Have Seen Delarue, as an Aid de Camp, at My House.

“To Thomas Jefferson from Lafayette, [11 November 1800],” Founders Online, National Archives, [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 32, 1 June 1800 – 16 February 1801, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 252.] (10/03/2022)

André-Toussaint Delarûe died in 1863.

As a little fun fact on the side, it appears as if Dumas had a nickname for Delarûe. In a letter to Alexander Hamilton from December 8, 1797, Dumas called his brother-in-law “Edouard”. Now, either Dumas just forgot the name of his brother-in-law (what I have difficulty to believe) or that was perhaps some sort of nickname.