The Resources of Quinola: A Comedy in a Prologue and Five Acts

by Honoré de Balzac

Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers

THE RESOURCES OF QUINOLA

A COMEDY IN A PROLOGUE AND FIVE ACTS

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC

First Presented at the Theatre de l'Odeon, Paris March 19, 1842.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Had the author of the following play written it merely for the purpose of winning for it the universal praise which the journals have lavished upon his romances, and which perhaps transcended their merits, The Resources of Quinola would still have been an excellent literary speculation; but, when he sees himself the object of so much praise and so much condemnation, he has come to the conclusion that it is much more difficult to make successfully a first venture on the stage than in the field of mere literature, and he has armed himself, accordingly, with courage, both for the present and for the future.

The day will come when the piece will be employed by critics as a battering ram to demolish some piece at its first representation, just as they have employed all his novels and even his play entitled Vautrin, to demolish The Resources of Quinola.

However tranquil may be his mood of resignation, the author cannot refrain from making here two suggestive observations.