Pacarel made his wealth in the sugar industry and wants to premiere an opera composed by his daughter, who 'rewrote Faust after Gounod'. To fulfil this objective, he asks his friend Dufausset who lives in Bordeaux to engage Dujeton, a well known tenor from the Bordeaux Opera. But instead of Dujeton, it is the son of Dufausset who comes. He is coming to Paris to study law. Pacarel mistakes him for Dujeton and signs a contract with him, leading to a series of misunderstandings. Feydeau's three-act comedy was premiered in September 1892 at the Théâtre Déjazet.