"'I have the honor to be--etc. La Harpe.'"
On the third of July, 1777, twenty-three dramatic authors found themselves gathered together around the table of Beaumarchais. If several had absented themselves from personal jealousies, others had stayed away through indifference. Collé, _homme spirituel_ and author famous in his time, replied in a letter flattering to Beaumarchais but refusing all participation in the work of the society. Absent at that time from Paris, he wrote, "I avow, Monsieur, with my ordinary frankness that even had I been in Paris I should not have had the honor of finding myself at your assembly of MM. the dramatic authors. I am old and disgusted to the point of nausea with that _troupe royale_. For three years I have seen neither _comédiens_ nor _comédiennes_.
I do not any the less, Monsieur, desire the accomplishment of your project, but permit me to limit myself to wishing you success, of which I would very much doubt if you were not at the head of the enterprise, which has all the difficulties which you can desire because you have proved to the public, Monsieur, that nothing is impossible to you. I have always thought that you disliked that which was easy.
A second invitation had no better success. The old poet answers in the same vein, "M. Collé thanks M. de Beaumarchais for his remembrance. He begs him anew to be so good as to receive his excuses for the affair of the comedians. He is too old to bother himself with it. Like the rat in the fable, he has retired into his Holland cheese and it is not likely that he will come out to make the world go otherwise than she is going. For fifteen years he has been saying of the impolite and disobliging proceedings of the comedians, that verse of Piron in _Callisthène_, 'From excess of contempt I have become peaceable. _A force de mépris je me trouve paisible._'
"M. Collé compliments M. de Beaumarchais a thousand and a thousand times."
Diderot, the founder of the new school of literature, also refused his concurrence.
"_Vous voilà_, Monsieur," he wrote, "at the head of an insurgence of dramatic poets against the comedians ... I have participated in none of these things and it will be possible to participate in none that are to follow. I pass my life in the country, almost as much a stranger to the affairs of the city as forgotten of its inhabitants. Permit me to limit myself to desires for your success. While you are fighting, I will hold my arms elevated to heaven, upon the mountains of Meudon. May those who devote themselves to the theater owe to you their independence, but to speak truly I fear that it will be more difficult to conquer a troup of comedians than a parliament. Ridicule does not have here the same force. No matter, your attempt will be none the less just and none the less honest. I salute and I embrace you. You know the sentiments of esteem with which I have been for a long time, Monsieur, yours, etc.