The Guilty Mother is the third play of the Figaro trilogy by Pierre Beaumarchais, following The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. Like its predecessors, it has been turned into operatic form, but unlike them, has failed to enter the general opera repertoire. This 1876 illustration by Émile Bayard shows one of the main characters, the Irishman Bégearss, a major in the Spanish military, and a great schemer and stirrer-up of trouble.Illustration credit: Émile Bayard; restored by Adam Cuerden