La folle vitesse des échanges dans Le Mariage de Figaro L'argent, de l'accessoire à la valeur

This study focuses on the place and problematic status of money in the central play of the Beaumarchais trilogy. While fulfilling an apparently classificatory and fixing function, references to money in ­Beaumarchais’s play ­constantly undermine the traditional classifications and hierarchies of the ancien régime. The principal function of money is to accelerate, vertiginously, the speed of substitutions which is the sign of a muted questioning of circuits of exchange.