At various times in his life, he was a watchmaker, inventor, playwright, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist, arms dealer, satirist, financier and revolutionary (both French and American).

Born a Parisian watchmaker's son, Beaumarchais rose in French society and became influential in the court of Louis XV as an inventor and music teacher.

He made a number of important business and social contacts, played various roles as a diplomat and spy, and had earned a considerable fortune before a series of costly court battles jeopardized his reputation.

Beaumarchais oversaw covert aid from the French and Spanish governments to supply arms and financial assistance to the rebels in the years before France's formal entry into the war in 1778.

The family had previously been Huguenots, but had converted to Roman Catholicism in the wake of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the increased persecution of Protestants that followed.

[10] The first man to take an interest in this new invention was Jean-André Lepaute, the royal clockmaker in France, whose clocks could be found in the Palais du Luxembourg, Tuileries Palace, the Palais-Royal, and the Jardin des plantes.

He encouraged him as he worked on the new invention, earned his trust, and promptly stole the idea for himself, writing a letter to the French Academy of Sciences describing the "Lepaute system".

Soon afterwards, he was asked by King Louis XV to create a watch mounted on a ring for his mistress Madame de Pompadour.

Beaumarchais assisted him in gaining the King's approval for the new military academy he was building, the École Royale Militaire, and in turn Duverney promised to help make him rich.

Assisted by Duverney, Beaumarchais acquired the title of Secretary-Councillor to the King in 1760–61, thereby gaining access to French nobility.

Around this time, he became engaged to Pauline Le Breton, who came from a plantation-owning family from Saint-Domingue, but broke it off when he discovered she was not as wealthy as he had been led to believe.

[17] In April 1764, Beaumarchais began a ten-month sojourn in Madrid, ostensibly to help his sister, Lisette, who had been abandoned by her fiancé, Clavijo, an official at the Ministry of War.

[20] Beaumarchais's business deals dragged on, and he spent much of his time soaking up the atmosphere of Spain, which would become a major influence on his later writings.

Although he befriended important figures such as the foreign minister Grimaldi, his attempts to secure the contracts for Duverney eventually came to nothing and he went home in March 1765.

Upon first reading a manuscript of Beaumarchais's play, King Louis XVI stated that "this man mocks everything that must be respected in a government" and refused to let it be performed.

[24] Don Guzman Brid'oison (Le Mariage) and Bégearss (La Mère) were caricatures of two of Beaumarchais's real-life adversaries, Goezman and Bergasse.

Suzanne, the heroine of Le Mariage and La Mère, was modelled after Beaumarchais's third wife, Marie-Thérèse de Willer-Mawlaz.

[25] The sequel, Le Mariage, was initially passed by the censor in 1781, but was soon banned from performance by Louis XVI after a private reading.

[24] Duverney's sole heir, Count de la Blache, took Beaumarchais to court, claiming the signed statement was a forgery.

The Goezman case was so sensational that the judges left the courtroom through a back door to avoid the large, angry mob waiting in front of the court house.

[24] Before France officially entered the war in 1778, Beaumarchais played a major role in delivering French munitions, money and supplies to the American army.

[28][2] In order to secretly funnel aid to the rebels, he helped set up a fictitious business called Roderigue Hortalez and Company.

His first mission was to travel to London to destroy a pamphlet, Les mémoires secrets d'une femme publique, which Louis XV considered a libel of one of his mistresses, Madame du Barry.

Beaumarchais was sent to London to persuade the French spy Chevalier d'Éon to return home, but while there he began gathering information on British politics and society.

Beaumarchais became a major source of information about the rebellion for the French government and sent a regular stream of reports with exaggerated rumours of the size of the success of the rebel forces blockading Boston.

Louis XVI, who did not want to break openly with Britain,[30] allowed Beaumarchais to found a commercial enterprise, Roderigue Hortalez and Company,[24] supported by the French and Spanish crowns, that supplied the American rebels with weapons, munitions, clothes and provisions, all of which would never be paid for.

[2] This policy came to fruition in 1777 when John Burgoyne's army capitulated at Saratoga to a rebel force largely clothed and armed by the supplies Beaumarchais had been sending; it marked a personal triumph for him.

[32] In April 1777, Beaumarchais purchased the old 50-gun ship of the line Hippopotame, and used her, renamed to Fier Rodrigue, to ferry arms to the insurgents.

[34] He bought the complete foundry of the famous English type designer John Baskerville from his widow and also purchased three paper mills.

He was financially successful, mainly from supplying drinking water to Paris, and had acquired ranks[clarification needed] in the French nobility.