Since its foundation in 1901, the weekly L’Assiette au beurre attacked all forms of authority: police, military, politicians, scholars, priests and Church-goers.
The humour is ferocious and the caricatures acerbic. The paper regularly published special issues drawn entirely by one artist. In this case the famous painter and engraver Félix Vallotton depicts a shady-looking notable all dressed up in a fur coat and decorated with the Légion d’honneur, scolding a policeman for the lack of tactfulness of his officers:
“Nothing gives you more a feeling of the infinite than stupidity”.