M.
de Lovenjoul, the Balzacian commentator, recognizing its superior
claims. It is the form now included in current French editions, and
the one followed in the present edition.

Although _Mercadet_, like the others, excited the ridicule of
supercilious critics, it has proven superior to them and to time. As
early as the year 1869, the Comedie Francaise--the standard French
stage--added _Mercadet_ to its repertory; and more than one company in
other theatres have scored success in its representation. The play
contains situations full of bubbling humor and biting satire. Its
motif is not sentiment. Instead, it inveighs against that spirit of
greed and lust for gain which places a money value even upon
affection. But during all the arraignment, Balzac, the born
speculator, cannot conceal a sympathy for the wily Mercadet while the
promoter's manoeuvres to escape his creditors must have been a
recollection in part of some of Balzac's own pathetic struggles. For,
like Dumas pere, Balzac was never able to square the debit side of his
books--be his income never so great. The author of _Cesar Birotteau_
and _Le Maison Nucingen_ here allows one more view of the seamy side
of business.

Structurally, too, the play is successful. With so great an element of
chance in the schemes of the speculator, it would have been easy to
transcend the limits of the probable. But the author is careful to
maintain his balances. Situation succeeds plot, and catastrophe
situation, until the final moment when the absconding partner actually
arrives, to the astonishment of Mercadet more than all the rest. And
with Mercadet's joyful exclamation, "I am a creditor!" the play has
reached its logical final curtain.

J. WALKER MCSPADDEN.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac, by
Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRAMAS OF BALZAC ***

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