The Fraudster

Balzac to Mme Hanska: "This play is a man fighting against his creditors and the ruses he uses to escape them."

The name has remained in the language to designate a glib-tongued promoter of doubtful enterprises. But it is more than a character comedy; it is also one of manners and a satire on an epoch of frenzied speculation, when small business gave way to large combinations and stock-companies, when money, not honor, was the god of France... It is the earliest representative of naturalism...