Crossword-Solution: MENAGES 7 letters, 2 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 10

Balzac went to Madame Marbouty's home to read to her the first acts of /L'Ecole des Menages/, which she liked; a few days later, he returned, depressed because a great lady had told him it was /ennuyeux/, so she tried to cheer him.

She complained that, in the time that he might have used to bring one plan successfully to completion, he generally started ten or twelve new ones, all of which vanished into smoke, and brought him no advantage.[*] [*] "L'Ecole des Menages" in "Autour de Honore de Balzac," by the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul.

CHAPTER XI 1836 - 1840 "Louise"--Drawing-room in Rue des Batailles--The "Cheval Rouge" --Balzac's second visit to Italy--Conversation with Genoese merchant--Buys Les Jardies at Sevres--Travels to Sardinia to obtain silver from worked-out mines--Disappointment--Balzac goes on to Italy--Takes up his abode in Les Jardies--Life there--He hopes to write a successful play--"L'Ecole des Menages"--Balzac's half-starved condition--He defends Peytel.

Before starting for Sardinia he wrote to Madame Carraud: "If I fail in what I undertake, I shall throw myself with all my might into writing for the theatre." He kept his word, and "La Premiere Demoiselle," a gloomy bourgeois tragedy, which soon received the name of "L'Ecole des Menages," was the result.

They accepted this in place of Balzac's play, and "L'Ecole des Menages," of which the only copy extant is in the possession of the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, has never been acted.