Le Trombinoscope

Little information is available about Le Trombinoscope, a weekly or biweekly series of biographies of more or less prominent politicians, activists, writers, artists, celebrities, and even newspapers and rival publications. The highly opinionated (often vituperative) articles, generally from a hard-left perspective, were written by Touchatout ("Touchesoneverything"), the pseudonym of Léon-Charles Bienvenu. The covers were graced with caricatures of the subjects by some of the leading cartoonists in France, and sometimes so scandalous that they were censored by the government and forced to leave an empty box.

The Revenant Archive contains seven issues: 

Le Trombinoscope. by Touchetout. No. 99: Jules Claretie, July1873. Paris. Single-fold Octavo Pamphlet, 4 pp.  

Claretie was a novelist and a historian and archivist of the avant-garde and leftist politics.

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Le Trombinoscope. by Touchetout. No. 102: Edgar Quinet, July 1873. Paris. Single-fold Octavo Pamphlet, 4 pp.  

Quinet was a romanticist and antiauthoritarian writer and historian, who lived in exile for two decades following Napoleon III's coup d'éatat.

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Le Trombinoscope. by Touchetout. No. 115: Alphonse Karr, Nov. 1873. Paris. Single-fold Octavo Pamphlet, 4 pp.  

Karr was a satirist, novelist, and publisher of the scandalous proto-zine Les Guêpes.

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Le Trombinoscope. by Touchetout. Vol. 3, No. 139: Journal des débats, May 1874. Paris. Single-fold Octavo Pamphlet, 4 pp.   

The Journal des debats was one of the biggest newspapers in France. Apparently, the illustration was nixed by the government censor.

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Le Trombinoscope. by Touchetout. No. 166: Antoine-Marie-Jules Sénard, Nov. 1874. Paris. Single-fold Octavo Pamphlet, 4 pp.    

Sénard was a lawyer and leftist politician. Apparently, his portrait was nixed by the government censor.

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Le Trombinoscope. by Touchetout. No. 177: Pastella Crevette, Jan. 1875. Paris. Single-fold Octavo Pamphlet, 4 pp.     

Pastella Crevette was the name chosen by a working-class woman forced into sex work, who eventually became a wealthy and well-known madame. 

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Le Trombinoscope. by Touchetout.Vol. 4, No. 232: Antonin-Jacques Radical, Feb. 1876. Paris. Single-fold Octavo Pamphlet w/colour-tinted cover, 4 pp.

Radical was (as his real surname coincidentally affirms) an especially radical leftist, dedicated to the practice of insurrection.