DAUMIER, H. - Comme je vous ai bien dit vertement votre fait!... Mais aussi, que je vous ai cruement riposté les choses les plus désagréables!... - Nous avons été beaux!... - Nous avons été magnifiques!…

Second state (of 2), with text, numbered 8. From "Les Gens de Justice", published " Chez Auber & Cie, Pl. de la Bourse,29". Translated text below image : - I really gave you a good dressing down…
- And I didn't mince matters in my reply....
- We were both excellent…
- We were superb. It's really only in the Palace of Justice that people know how to argue and call each other all kinds of names without really getting angry...)

Provost suggests that Daumier portrayed himself in this print.

Around the mid-1840s Daumier started publishing his famous caricatures depicting members of the legal profession, known as 'Les Gens de Justice', a scathing satire about judges, defendants, attorneys and corrupt, greedy lawyers in general. A number of extremely rare albums appeared on white paper, covering 39 different legal themes, of which 37 had previously been published in the Charivari. It is said that Daumier's own experience as an employee in a bailiff's office during his youth may have influenced his rather negative attitude towards the legal profession.

Known chiefly as a political and social satirist, Honoré DAUMIER (1808-1879) used the printmaking process of lithography, still relatively new at the time, to contribute cartoons and caricatures to French news weeklies.