The firm was, in fact, the government front recently set up for shipping military supplies to America without implicating Versailles or embarrassing Louis XVI. A tall, slender, elegant man said to be the Hortalèz managing director occasionally flitted down the rue Vieille du Temple, but he, too, was not what he seemed, and he never had been. Pierre-Augustin Caron, better known as Beaumarchais, was among the most improbable figures affiliated with the American rebellion; with his celebrated gift for “oozing through keyholes,” he was also among the great characters of eighteenth-century France.
