This paper offers a counterpoint to the reading of Simeon Prosper Hardy (1729-1806)’s manuscripts by questioning those of his contemporary, the glazier Jacques Louis Ménétra (1738-1812). Possibly crossed on Saint-Jacques Street or at Saint-Cloud, Ménétra and Hardy shared a context and various spaces and concerns, even if their energy, sense of observation and manners of writing took other forms. The Journal de ma vie and the Écrits inédits are here solicited to seize the author in his various forms of appropriation of the city, in his sociabilities, his friendships, his work, his consumptions and his leisures.