CLAVIJO Y FAXAIinO, JOSEPH. 



CLAVIJO Y FAXAHDO, JOSEPH. 



UM country when Cottri landed on iU hou in 1521. The wcond 

 volume treat* of the manners, rwtonu. arta, science*, and language 

 of UM people. The third, which cooUini the account of the conquest 

 by Cortes, fa written with greet impartiality. The author feels a 

 Mexican tmthr than a Spaniard. The fourth volume consuls of 

 Jhamtatluui oo the physical and moral constitution of the ancient 

 Mexican*, on their prom* in the arU and sciences, on their religion, 

 on the proper boundaris* of the empire of Anahuao ; nnd lastly, the 

 author giv* a list of work* written in the various native language* 

 sine* the conquest, either by Spaniards or native*. In thews diaaerta- 

 tioo Clarkero has at time* shown more industry and honest zoal 

 than critical discrimination ; bis work howercr is, upon the whole, the 

 beet that has been written on ancient Mexico. It was translated into 

 KagUah by C. Cullen : The History of Mexico,' 2 Tola, 4to, London, 

 1787. Clavigero died at Ceseoa in October 1793. 



CLAVIJO Y KAXARDO, JOSEPH, a Spanish writer, whose name 

 is now bitter known in France and Qermany than in Spain from a train 

 of circumstances which bare secured him an unenviable immortality. 

 He was born at Lanzarote, one of the Canary islands, on the 19th of 

 March 1726, and was educated in the Inlands for the legal profession, 

 bat went in 1749 to seek bis fortune in Madrid, and was appointed to 

 a place in the war-office, where he bad the merit of first suggesting 

 the publication of a Spanish army-list, the series of which commences 

 in 17(3. The year before, 1762, he had begun, under the assumed 

 name of Alrarei y Valladarea, a periodical collection of essays in 

 imitation of the English 'Spectator,' to which he gave the title of ' El 

 Peneador,' or ' The Thinker.' The work was so successful that he soon 

 afflxed his real name to it, and the third volume appeared with a 

 royal privilege to protect it from piracy, commencing with the very 

 unusual clause that hii majesty bad been " informed of the utility ami 

 profit which resulted to the public from this periodical undertaking." 

 The king, Charles III., a warm patron of literature, at the same time 

 promised him the first honourable pott suited to his merits which 

 should become vacant, and a few weeks after he was named Officer of 

 the Archives of the first Secretary of State. 



For some years Claviio bad been acquainted with two French ladies, 

 Madame Omlbert and Mademoiselle Caron, who carried on some kind 

 of business, probably millinery, at Madrid. He bad received from 

 them instruction in the niceties of the French* language, and some 

 binta in the composition of the ' Pensador,' much of which, like its 

 KnglUh prototype, was occupied with speculations on the fair sex. 

 At his first success he made proposals for the hand of Mademoiselle 

 Caroo, and the marriage was settled to take place as soon as he received 

 hi* promised appointment. When the appointment came the lover 

 cooled, and though the banns bad been put up, be ceased to frequent 

 the house. Some scandal was excited, and the French ambassador 

 was applied to. Clavijo began to be afraid of the result, solicited his 

 betrothed for pardon, renewed his vows, brought the affair for the 

 second time to the verge of marriage, and then repeated his desertion. 

 The younger lady became seriously ill, the elder wrote to Paris to 

 complain to their father and family, and their brother, Pierre Augustin 

 Caron, came to Madrid to inquire into the matter. He was then a 

 man of two-and- thirty, scarcely beginning to be known, but be after- 

 wards became celebrate. 1 under the title of nobility which he purchased, 

 the title of Beaumarchais. [ BIACUABCUAIS.] 



Beauniarchais on his arrival at Madrid introduced himself with a 

 friend to Clavyo, in the character of a French literary gentleman who 

 was travelling, at the request of a literary society at Paris, to establish 

 a correspondence with the most eminent writers of every country, 

 and was of course attracted to the rising hope of Spain, the distin- 

 guished author of the ' Pensador.' When Clavijo. who welcomed his 

 proposal with eagerness, inquired if he could serve him in any other 

 way, the stranger, fixing bis eyes on him, commenced a narrative of 

 the wrong* of a French lady at Madrid, in which, as it proceeded, 

 CUvijo could not fail with gradually darkening countenance to recog- 

 nise the story in which he bore a principal part. " The eldest sister," 

 ISeanmarchaia went on, " wrote off to France an account of the outrage 

 to wbii h they had been subjected, and the story affected their brother 

 to nich * degree that he made but one leap from Paris to Madrid. I 

 am that brother, come to unmask a traitor, and to write bis soul on 

 bis face in line* of blood. The traitor is yourself !" The startled 

 Spaniard began to stammer out in explanation ; the prepared and self- 

 posMSMd Frenchman, prxslng hi* advantage, cut him short with a 

 declaration that what be came to demand was, not the completion of 

 UM marriage, but an acknowledgment, under Clavijo's own hand, that 

 be was a villain who bad deceived, betrayed, outraged his sister, 

 without a cause. In caw of refusal, Beaumarchais told him that be 

 would pursue him till be should be obliged to give him a meeting 

 behind Burantiro, at that time the common spot for duels at Madri.i. 



advantage over us, and may laugh at our expence." The interview 

 after a long discussion ended with Clavijo's giving him the declaration 

 be required, bearinc on the fao* of it that it was "free and spontaneous;" 

 and Bsantnarrhai* Ml him with the understanding that CUvyo was to 

 fee permitted if ponible to make hi* peace with hi* betrothed. 



It was on the 19th of May 1764 that this declaration was given 

 on the 26th of May, Marie Louise Caron and Joseph Clavijo signed a 

 contract of marriage, in presence of several witnesses. Then for the 

 third time the 'Pensador' began to waver. A duenna made her 

 appearance who asserted that he had made her a promise of marriage 

 several yean before. Beauniarchais suspected, not without some cause, 

 that the duenna was set on by the man she appeared to pursue. Clavijo 

 then shifted his resilience, and gave out that he was in fear of violence 

 from Beanmarchais, who had forced him with a pistol at his throat 

 to sign a contract for marrying his sister. The French ambassador 

 advised his countryman to quit Spain as soon as possible for his own 

 safety ; but be took the bolder course of forcing his way to Qrimaldi, 

 the minister, and a narrative of the whole affair was put through 

 Qrimaldis intervention into the hands of the king. Finally, the 

 monarch in person decided that Clavijo should be deprived of his 

 post, and for ever dismissed from the employment of the state. 



Such is the statement of the whole affair made by Beaumarchais 

 ten years after its occurrence,. It took place in 1764 ; in 1774 Beau- 

 marchais, who was then in prison at Paris, engaged in a law-suit with 

 a certain Madame Goczmami, finding that the public was prejudiced 

 against him by a report that he had been expelled from Spain for 

 discreditable proceedings there, published, as one of the legal docu- 

 ments in his defence, an account of his journey to Spain. His 

 antagonists might have argued from it that, even when he bad a good 

 cause to defend, his proceedings were full of artifice ; and that, in 

 spite of his stratagems, he failed in his object. But nothing of this 

 kind appears to have been said. It was currently remarked that his 

 enemies, by trying to plunge Beaumarchais into an abyss, had forced 

 him to save himself on a pedestal, and his conduct in the affair seems 

 to have passed for a model of spirit and sagacity. In fact it was the 

 narrative of his adventure with CUvijo that first raised him a 

 reputation. It was read with eagerness and sympathy throughout 

 Europe, and in Germany, falling into the hands of Giithc, it was in 

 eight days turned into a tragedy, which became at once popular on 

 the German and the Danish stage. The earlier part of the play, in 

 which the characters bear their actual names, follows with tolerable 

 closeness the narrative of Eeaumarchais ; in the latter part the renewed 

 desertion of Clavijo, or as he is called Clavigo, is made to have a fatal 

 effect on his betrothed, who dies of a broken heart, and at her funeral 

 the lover, who is delineated as a man of worth led astray by ambition, 

 dies by the sword of the brother, rejoicing that his death makes some 

 atonement for the wrongs of his beloved. 



A t the time that Gotbe's tragedy was making the names of Clavijo 

 and Maria almost as familiar in northern Europe as those of Romeo and 

 Juliet, Maria Caron had b come the wife of a French merchant named 

 Durand, and Clavijo was managing a theatre and editing a newspaper. 

 The narrative of Beaumorchnis concludes with the ignominious dis- 

 missal of the Spaniard from all his employments a dismissal which 

 was to last for life, but which appears to have been reversed in a very 

 few years. In a Spanish work, the ' Noticias de la Historia General 

 do las Islas de Canaria,' by Don Joseph de Viera y Clavijo, probably 

 a relative of the author of the ' Pensador,' the fourth volume, published 

 in 1783, which contains a 'Biblioteca de los Autores .Canarios,' has a 

 life of Clavijo y Faxardo, which enables us to obtain a glimpse at his 

 side of the question. " He was," says the friendly biographer, " an 

 officer of the archives of the chief secretariat of state in 1764, when a 

 monster from France came to disturb his fortunes and to interrupt 

 his useful labours. I give the name of monster not without reason to 

 that Pierre Caron do Benuniarchais, who is known throughout Europe 

 for his machinations, his law-suits, his adventures, his writings, his 

 comedies, and his talents. He did not hesitate to publish in Paris in 

 1774 all the harm he had done to our Don Joseph Clavijo, by making 

 himself here in Madrid the Don Quixote of a sister who aspired to 

 his hand (quo aspiraba h su mano). It would have been easy for 

 Clavijo to refute a story so full of fictions that Wolfgang Gothc, a 

 German poet, thought he found in it sufficient argument for a German 

 tragedy called 'Clavijo,' which was translated into French by M. 

 Friedel ; but he rather chose to give the world a rare example of 

 Christian philosophy and generosity, by causing to be acted in the 

 theatre of the royal palace, of which he was at that time chief 

 director, a come<ly by this very Beaumarcbais, entitled the ' Barber of 

 Seville.' " 



The defence of Clavijo, thus put forth evidently under his own 

 auspicen, loaves hjm in a worse position, when it is known, than he 

 occupied before. In the 'Biographie Univcrfelle,' Bourgoing, and in 

 the ' Dictionnaire do la Conversation,' Audiffrct, both Frenchmen, have 

 taken up his defence, remarking that his only fault was that he could 

 not love for ever, and that be was the victim of the hatred of Beau- 

 marchais ; but a man who is only able to reply to an accusation of 

 having three times broken a contract of marringe, in one case formally 

 signed, by a vague sneer at the lady who " aspired to his hand," without 

 a denial of the facts alleged, is a man not to be excused. It should 

 be remarked also that in the memoirs of ' Beaumarchais ct Eon Temps," 

 published at Paris in 1856 by Louis do Lomenie, the statements 

 respecting his proceedings in Spain appear to be borne out In almost 

 every respect as exact, and that it is shown that he stayed at Madrid 

 for nearly a twelvemonth after his memorable affray with Clavijo, so 

 that there can be no doubt who remained master of the field. The 



