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Engels, who admitted having learnt more from Balzac than from economists, laid down the basis of the dialectal relationship between literature and the economy. It is this relationship which will be examined here regarding those post-revolutionary years that witnessed the formalization of liberal ideology and the development of capitalism. It was when capital, which left no field of investment unturned, went as far as penetrating the world of ideas. Balzac highlighted this development in L’illustre Gaudissart (1833), in which the hero, as a travelling salesman, identifies “the major transition which […] links the period of material exploitation to intellectual exploitation” and demonstrates how ideas had become merchandise. If exploitation is used in reference to articles here, it is precisely these mechanisms which will be highlighted: a “levelling-out process” which “puts all goods into the same category” and “throws them away in huge quantities”, thereby promoting the consumption of ideas.