Abstract: Giraudoux was an authentic “paysan de Paris” for whom Bellac remained his “unwavering base”. La Menteuse, unfinished, mutilated, occupies a singular place in his oeuvre. A continuation of Églantine, the novel paradoxically amplifies the myth of the “ville-miroir,” its symbolism and its attributes. Giraudoux rejected the description but not the history nor the atmosphere of Paris of the time, in which the characters and setting are steeped, but not reflected.
