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,
_"I have seen Beaumarchais's ridiculous drama, And in a single word I will say what it is; It is an exchange where money circulates, Without producing any interest."_
Lintilhac remarks, "He gave in this crisis a double proof of his genius; in the first place, he allowed his piece to fall without comment, and in the second he did not despair of his dramatic vocation."
Already Beaumarchais was meditating his _Barbier de Séville_ but in the meantime he was seriously occupied with a new and extensive business transaction. The fortune of his wife had enabled him to enter into a partnership with old Du Verney in the acquisition of the vast forest of Chinon, which they bought from the government. A letter to his wife, dated July 15, 1769, shows him at his work.