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The surveillance of seditious writings and placards in Paris in the aftermath of the Commune, between 1872 and 1885, gave rise to 2,780 reports and the removal and conservation of around 500 graphic documents. The latter, which have already been analysed by Céline Braconnier, Susanna Barrows and Philippe Artières, can be read not only as the political expression of Parisians but also as the traces of a popular visual and material culture. Whenever the police investigations turn out to be red herrings, the graphic objects make it possible to rediscover a popular culture of writing and graphic design as well as a way of existing in a city still under construction. Caught between the surveillance of police commissioners and informers and the saturation of commercial and official posters, the authors repeat their writings or work on a microscopic scale while choosing the location of their placards with care. The nature of the charcoal, chalk, pencils, and pens, that of the supports – wrapping papers, newspapers, telegram slips, etc. – and the ways in which they are attached – with flour pellets, hide glue, etc. – give clues as to the authors of these inscriptions. “Homers” are particularly worrying, whether they are made of fabric, probably embroidered by women, of stencilled letters made with the tools of the dockers from both the customs office and the port of the Bastille, or made using administrative techniques such as gelatine duplication. Sometimes produced in a hurry, and sometimes patiently in private, these writings bear witness to a popular culture marked by elementary schooling, by a typographic culture shaped by the press and commerce, and by a new culture of paperwork.