With Polichinelle précepteur (Polichinelle private tutor), Duranty draws on a well-known plot outline (Polichinelle cheats a naive victim, manages to escape justice, but ends up taken away by the devil) whilst using the innovative theme of education. During Duranty’s time, Polichinelle was already being used for educational purposes in soppy and edifying tales for children. It was also a toy usually gifted to little boys. Duranty’s Polichinelle is an unscrupulous crook: vivacious and fierce with a quick comeback. This Polichinelle is cast against type here—because he pretends to be a more prominent pedagogue than the most famous of them, e.g. Jacotot, Pestalozzi, and Rousseau; thanks to him, Duranty challenges a conception of children literature as being based on good feelings.

The wealthy Cassandre is so distressed by his son Pierrot’s foolishness and insolence that he is willing to spend a fortune on a private tutor. Polichinelle is hired, but his poor lessons in obedience, geography, arithmetics, moral and fencing turn Pierrot into a brawler, drinker, liar and thief who ends up hanged after having cheated the tavern keeper Arlequin and beating up the Gendarme (Constable). When Cassandre asks Polichinelle for explanations about his son’s death, Polichinelle beats him to death with a stick. When Arlequin denounces Polichinelle as Pierrot’s accomplice, Polichinelle kills the Gendarme who has come to arrest him. He is carried off by the Diable (Devil).