Voyage de Paris à St. Cloud...

Published by RBH / Jan. 2017

According to the authoritative Larousse dictionary, the French word “badaud” refers to someone who “wanders around town, being curious of the various spectacles of life, and stopping to contemplate them.” But in the 18^th century, a “badaud” was a simpleton, a typical Parisian character depicted in a funny booklet entitled Le Voyage de Saint-Cloud par Mer & par Terre (La Haye—in fact, Paris—, 1748).