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The artistic success of the Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux in 1842 cannot be attributed solely to the illustrator Grandville. Without the publisher Hetzel, and without Balzac, this exquisite masterpiece would never have seen the light of day. After the publication of La Fontaine’s Fables (1838), Grandville set out to produce an illustrated book where “text is subordinate to image”—and not the other way around. This idea first came about with the young Pierre-Jules Hetzel (P.-J. Stahl). In Les Français peints par eux-mêmes published by Léon Curmer in 1840–1842, the printed text did not really correspond to the illustrations; by contrast, Hetzel’s edition compels the illustrator and the writers to draw their inspiration from a common source: Grandville’s subtle and original vignettes. Balzac played a very important role by contributing four tales to the book. The illustration on the last page of the second volume tells of the publisher’s ambitions; “the animals are painted by themselves and drawn by another,” with three human heads peering out of a rabbit hutch, and the illustrator sitting on a book. This humorous depiction of Hetzel, Grandville, and Balzac offers a brilliant analysis of the situation of the literary world in 1842.