In the short story, Paul’s mistress, the French author Guy de Maupassant describes the floating café La Grenouillère in a Paris suburb: “In the environs a crowd of people were strolling... prostitutes with yellow hair and protruding breasts... plastered with rouge ... rigged out in outrageous dresses ... while beside them young dandies postured in the latest fashion. In the floating establishment, the uproarious crowd made a deafening noise.”