Henry Monnier was an illustrator, caricaturist, playwright, and the author of the Scènes populaires (Popular Scenes) and of Les Bas-fonds de la société (The shallows of society). He created the well-known character Monsieur Prudhomme; this character is a satire of the bourgeois man of Monnier’s time, symbolising the pretentiousness, rigid morality and conservative mind of the bourgeoisie during the first half of the 19th century. Monsieur Prudhomme was used in Lemercier de Neuville’s repertoire for puppet, where a dozen plays exploit his comic potential. Balzac described him as “the illustrious example of the Parisian bourgeois”, and Paul Verlaine drew inspiration from him to write a homonymous poem (in Poèmes Saturniens).

Henry Monnier collaborated with several writers, journalists and artists, and partook in the private performances of the Erotikon Theatron, in the house where Amédée Roland and Jean du Boys used to live, at the 45 Rue de la Santé in Paris.