him, the happiness of being a father was the only happiness which had hitherto been denied him.
The new drama, “Les Deux Amis,” although he himself says of it, “It is the most powerfully composed of all my works,” was not a success before the Parisian public. In the provinces and in the most of Europe it met with a very different reception, long retaining its favor with the public there.
It is the story of two friends who live in the same house, Malac père, collector of rents for a Parisian company, and Aurelly, merchant of Lyons, where the scene is laid. Aurelly is expecting from Paris certain sums to enable him to meet a payment which must be made in a few days. Malac père learns that the money from Paris will not arrive and to save his friend turns into the latter’s case all which he has in his possession as collector of rents, allowing his friend to think that the money from Paris has arrived. At this moment the agent-general of the Paris company appears demanding the rents. During two acts Malac père allows himself to be suspected of having appropriated the money, meekly accepting the disdain of the friend whose credit he has saved.
The real situation discloses itself at last and through the heroism of Pauline, the niece of Aurelly, and the curiosity of the agent-general, St. Alban, the threatened ruin is averted.
In connection with the main action, Beaumarchais has joined a charming episode of the loves of Pauline and Malac fils. The play opens with a pleasing scene, where the young girl is seated at the piano playing a sonata while the young man accompanies her with the violin; the scene and the conversation which follows are a touching souvenir of the early days of Beaumarchais’s attachment for the beautiful creole,
Pauline.
The piece was produced January 13, 1770, and was given ten times. Loménie says, in explaining the reason for the short duration of the play: “Each one of us suffers, loves and hates in virtue of an impulse of the heart, but very few have a clear idea of what is felt by one exposed to bankruptcy or supposed guilty of misappropriating money. These situations are too exceptional to work upon the soul, too vulgar to excite the imagination, they may well concur in forming the interest of a drama, but only on condition that they figure as accessories. Vainly did Beaumarchais blend the loves of Pauline and Malac fils, trying to sweeten the aridity of the subject. Several spiritual or pathetic scenes could not save the too commercial drama of ‘Les Deux Amis.’”
The author having, as he said, the advantage over his sad brothers of the pen in that he could go to the theater in his own carosse, and making perhaps a little too much of this advantage, the effect of the failure of his drama was to call out many witticisms. It is said that at the end of the first representation a wag of the parterre cried out, “It is question here of bankruptcy; I am in it for twenty sous.”
Several days afterward Beaumarchais remarked to Sophie Arnould, apropos of an opera Zoroaster which did not succeed, “In a week’s time you will not have a person, or at least very few.”
The witty actress replied, “Vos Amis will send them to us.”