Eugénie Foa’s novel Mémoires d’un polichinelle starts with the tale of two children who, on New Year’s Eve, stop in front of a Polichinelle puppet booth. The second chapter, written as a theatrical text, is a transcription of the play: it is a somehow faithful rewriting of the show that was performed with glove-puppets in open-air puppet booths, for example in Paris on the Champs-Élysées, since the end of the 18th century. This version can be compared with that published by Jules Rémond two years before, or with that of the anonymous collection Les Grotesques.

Polichinelle enters and, with a stick, hits the director of a tavern who came to greet him. They fight and Polichinelle kills him. La Femme du Cabaretier (the tavern-keeper’s wife) asks Polichinelle where her husband is. He beats her as well, and she takes her husband’s corpse to the tavern. Le Commissaire (Superintendent) comes to get Polichinelle to throw him in prison, but Polichinelle beats him and runs away. Le Gendarme (Constable) also wants to arrest him. Polichinelle beats him as well, but other Gendarmes arrive and manage to get hold of him. Polichinelle is imprisoned. Le Bourreau (Executioner) wants to hang him, but Polichinelle pretends that he cannot put his head in the slipknot. He asks the Bourreau to show him how to do it, and hangs him in his stead. Le Diable (Devil) comes to take Polichinelle to Hell. They both fight, but the Diable wins and takes Polichinelle off the stage with him.