Buffon was still alive, and the great sailors were every day enriching with their discoveries the _Jardin du Roi;_ the physicists and the chemists, in the wake of Lavoisier, were giving to science a language intelligible to common folks; the jurisconsults were attempting to reform the rigors of criminal legislation at the same time with the abuses they had entailed, and Beaumarchais was bringing on the boards his _Manage de Figaro_.
The piece had been finished and accepted at the Theatre Francais since the end of 1781, but the police-censors had refused permission to bring it out.

Beaumarchais gave readings of it; the court itself was amused to see itself attacked, caricatured, turned into ridicule; the friends of Madame de Polignac reckoned among the most ardent admirers of the _Manage de Figaro_.

The king desired to become acquainted with the piece.

He had it read by Madame de Campan, lady of the chamber to the queen, and very much in her confidence.

The taste and the principles of Louis XVI.
were equally shocked.