Nadar Elevating Photography to Art

You must admit that it is a bit boring, Monsieur Loustalot, to stand like this all day with your arms up like that holding the signal-flag?... - You are telling me!.. and I'm so stuffed up with a cold! I needed to blow my nose for the past 45 minutes..... but I don't dare .... it might endanger the safety of the train.... I'll ask the next passenger who happens to pass by to do me this favour.

Un Guichet de théatre.

The Oyster. (You'll wake me up at dinner time.) Big, fat, thick, plump, greedy, wakes up only for the purpose of taking in food and sleeps only for the purpose of digesting it. The oyster does not eat for living, but lives for eating. Its locomotive and industrial apparatus are non existent. It vegetates on the spot and its existence is manifested only by the exactitude, the number and the quality of the meals. The entire energy of the oyster is located in the stomach. One might call it an animal of pleasure, its only mission in life being to consume without working, while others work without consuming. It seems to be perfectly at ease with this providential mission. (Lacépède – Natural History.)

Croquade Divers

The Adoption. - Well, really! Robert, my friend, so you are becoming a family man. You're considering adoption?... You will soon crown the maidens at the village fair... (Robert)- Yes, I adopted this child. I want to thrive in the joys of family life... (Wormspire) - You want to marry your ward... - Yes, I want her to get married. Yes, get her married to a rich man, prepare for my retirement. - Prepare for your retirement... get enough money for old age and win the Monthion prize... I know, I know!

The Grand Stairway of the Palais de Justice

You remember now that young Cabassol is far too good in translation that I would allow anyone in this class to molest him... he is under my immediate protection! At the final exams it is he who will hold up the honour of Bilboquet High school.

The Grand Stairway of the Palais de Justice

Robert Macaire bookseller. Ladies and gentlemen, would there be anyone in this pleasant place who'd like to make himself a nice little income, without difficulty and without working?... If there is someone he should stock my primers... You don't have to be a bookseller to be a specialist in this trade, you don't even have to know how to read, quite the contrary!... You only have to pay me a deposit... The bigger the better, as the saying goes.

The Grand Stairway of the Palais de Justice