lesnuits “Paris” was enough,”Nights” more than..Any reference to Nights of Paris always draws my attention.But this time it was along with the blurry images of a cloaked novelist,journalist,or…roaming through the streets of 18th century Paris and capturing his after dark experiences using letters in the volumes of “Les Nuits De Paris”.
Who was he?
It was Restif De La Briton.
A novelist who has hastily written huge volumes of work to his credit(, with sexually objectionable content as par standards of his days.)
The mix of facts and fantasies of his nights can be debated but still it’s a valuable account considering the fact that last two volumes were written during the time of Revolution.

In “This is not the End of the Book” Umberto Eco mentions about two such incidents which Restif might have witnessed along with the crowd of the “The Gala Guillotine Show”.

The first is “The Groper”, a man who gropes women’s butt in the crowd every time a head falls, chopped off by the Guillotine.

The second is the story of man and his dog. The man who pleas to the crowd before his execution to take care of his dog. The crowd pays no heed to that and insults him.After his death the guards found the dig licking blood from the tray and the angry guards stabs him to death. The crowd gets furious at this incident and yells at the guards.. “Murderers! Shame on you ! What did the poor dog ever do to you?.

An interesting book, important from the aspect of time and content rather than the literary values. Google has digitized the book and is freely available in Google Books

http://books.google.co.in/books/about/Les_nuits_de_Paris_ou_Le_spectateur_noct.html?id=UpYtAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y

But this is in French !!!