BEAUHAR`NAIS, ALEXANDRE, VICOMTE DE, born at Martinique, where he married a lady who, afterwards as wife of Napoleon, became the Empress Josephine; accepted and took part in the Revolution; was secretary of the National Assembly; coolly remarked, on the news of the flight of the king, “The king’s gone off; let us pass to the next business of the House”; was convicted of treachery to the cause of the Revolution and put to death; as the father of Hortense, who married Louis, Napoleon’s brother, he became grandfather of Napoleon III. (1760-1794).

BEAUHARNAIS, EUGENE DE, son of the preceding and of Josephine, born at Paris, step-son of Napoleon, therefore was made viceroy of Italy; took an active part in the wars of the empire; died at Muenich, whither he retired after the fall of Napoleon (1781-1824).

BEAUHARNAIS, HORTENSE EUGENIE, sister of the preceding, ex-queen of Holland; wife of Louis Bonaparte, an ill-starred union; mother of Napoleon III., the youngest of three sons (1783-1837).

BEAUMAR`CHAIS, PIERRE AUGUSTIN CARON DE, a dramatist and pleader of the most versatile, brilliant gifts, and French to the core, born in Paris, son of a watchmaker at Caen; ranks as a comic dramatist next to Moliere; author of “Le Barbier de Seville” (1775), and “Le Mariage de Figaro” (1784), his masterpiece; astonished the world by his conduct of a lawsuit he had, for which “he fought against reporters, parliaments, and principalities, with light banter, clear logic, adroitly, with an inexhaustible toughness of resource, like the skilfullest fencer.”  He was a zealous supporter of the Revolution, and made sacrifices on its behalf, but narrowly escaped the guillotine; died in distress and poverty.  Of the two plays he wrote, Saintsbury says, “The wit is indisputable, but his chansons contain as much wit as the Figaro plays.”  He made a fortune by speculations in the American war, and lost by others, one of them being the preparation of a sumptuous edition of Voltaire.  For the culmination and decline, as well as appreciation, of him, see the “French Revolution,” by Carlyle (1732-1799).

BAUMA`RIS, principal town in Anglesea, Wales, on the Menai Strait, near Bangor, a favourite watering-place, with remains of a castle erected by Edward I.

BEAUMONT, CHRISTOPHE DE, archbishop of Paris, born at Perigord, “spent his life in persecuting hysterical Jansenists and incredulous non-confessors”; but scrupled to grant, though he fain would have granted, absolution on his deathbed to the dissolute monarch of France, Louis XV.; issued a charge condemnatory of Rousseau’s “Emile,” which provoked a celebrated letter from Rousseau in reply (1703-1781).

BEAUMONT, FRANCIS, dramatic poet, born in Leicestershire, of a family of good standing; bred for the bar, but devoted to literature; was a friend of Ben Jonson; in conjunction with his friend Fletcher, the composer of a number of plays, about the separate authorship of which there has been much discussion, the dramatic power of which comes far short of that so conspicuous in the plays of their great contemporary Shakespeare, though it is said contemporary criticism gave them the preference (1585-1615).