“Le débiteur est plus fort que le créancier”. Balzac, la dette et la morale dans la société post-moderne

This article shows how Balzac’s work portrays and examines the relationship between debtor and creditor, and the gradual relativization of patrimonial responsibility. Through this, he anticipated the trend, promoted by European Union law, toward subverting the rule of “you owe” grounded in bourgeois ideology.