... paying a few sous the gapers can hoist themselves upon it. From this position one can perceive a motionless, attentive crowd reaching down the whole length of the Avenue of the Grande Armee, as far as the Porte Maillot, from which a great cloud of white smoke springs up every moment followed by a violent explosion,—it is the cannon of the ramparts firing on the Rond Point of Courbevoie; and beyond this the Avenue ... — Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... with a multitude of creatures fearfully and wonderfully clad, who do incomprehensible things in connection with motor-carriages. Also there are big cafes in plenty, whose waiters must be smoothly shaven: and moreover, at the time when Hippolyte came into his own, the porte Maillot station of the Metropolitain had already pushed its entree and sortie up through the soil, not a hundred metres from his door, where they stood like atrocious yellow tulips, art nouveau, breathing people out and in by thousands. There was no lack of possible custom. The problem ... — Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various