Nanine

François-Marie Arouet wrote under the nom de plume of Voltaire, and produced works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. "This Comedy is called in the French Nanine, ou le Préjugé Vaincu (Nanine, or Prejudice Overcome). It is written, as we are told in the title-page, in verses of ten syllables. The absurdity of comedies in rhyme I have already remarked. The original begins thus: Il faut parler, il faut, Monsieur le Comte, Vous expliquer nettement sur mon Compte. The reader cannot but observe, what villainous rhymes Comte and Compte are, and perhaps will more readily forgive my reducing this comedy into plain prose. It was produced in 1749."-Voltaire