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.” Finally the capital fault of the play is very well drawn up in the quatrain of the time,