The article studies the activities of secret agents of the Parisian police in collecting information about the mood in Paris in the second half of the 18th century. The source for the article is fragmentary surviving police reports from the 1740s to 1781. Previously, this source was used by historians to study public opinion in Paris in the first half - mid-18th century. This article aims to investigate what information came to the attention of secret agents and whether it was useful for the chief of the Parisian police. Reporting information about the international situation and military actions, high society life, government reshuffles, city news, unusual incidents, theatrical and literary events, the agents paid attention not so much to what could be important for maintaining order in the city, as to what simply seemed interesting to them. The content of their reports was influenced by the newspapers that were widely distributed at that time, including handwritten ones.
Ludmila Pimenova (Mon,) studied this question.