pluchart.com

"In "les trappeurs parisiens", Imbert discribes a strange character from the last century : the soul's rescuer.
His contemporaries affirmed that he saved around a thousand during his career.
Regularly supplied by his accomplice the ragman, he gathered in the darkness of his shop all kinds of old shoes.
His speciality consisted in recuperating this essential part of the shoes called "soul" and to introduce it in a new shoe.
Thanks to him, once washed and dried, the "soul" could live again."

"the forgotten trades of Paris"
L. Berreuet-G. Laurendon éd. Parigramme

margueritte la vache, bugs bunny, le pipi de l'arbre,
groucho marx, dc jeckill, le poiçonneur des lilas, le requin, ferdinand et caruso (photos ph. moulu)