Honoré de Balzac wrote his plays in a rush for money

Honoré de Balzac the novelist tried his hand at theater to pay off his perpetual debts and earn money quickly. Unlike his novels which he revised ten times, he wrote his plays on the fly without any real interest in the dramatic genre. Practically all his attempts were stinging failures or were banned, with the exception of the comedy Mercadet le faiseur created in 1851.