Newsagents Are Fed Up

Bullied by the Consortium of Major Daily Newspapers, which presumes to interfere in their businesses, controlled and spied on by the Hachette Mailbox, newsagents have a hard time. Here is Mrs. Vve Guilliers, who runs a bookstore and haberdashery business in our neighborhood, who is finally raising the banner of revolt.
One of the Hachette Mailbox inspectors recently appeared at Mrs. Vve Guilliers's home, 117 rue de Belleville, and made the intolerable pretense of interfering in her business.
Since she refused to comply with the demands of this administration, the inspector ordered her to stop selling the Consortium's newspapers. The shopkeeper responded wittily to Messageries Hachette by posting a banner on her door reading:

UNWANTING TO FALL UNDER THE CAUDINE FORKS OF THE MAJOR ADMINISTRATIONS OF THE CONSORTIUM OF MAJOR DAILIES, AND MESSAGERIES HACHETTE, I HAVE HAD THE SALE OF THEIR ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPERS, etc., CANCELED.

Then she posted a "Public Notice" worded as follows:

Deficit resulting from the discontinuation of the sale of Le Petit Parisien and Le Matin.

Le Matin, daily sales: 7
Le Petit Parisien, daily sales: 20
Total… 27
Since the profit per newspaper is 0.04 francs, the daily deficit translates to a sum of 0.04 francs x 27, or 1 franc. 08.

Despite this enormous loss, the House will continue to pay all its bills in cash, as in the past, and will not go bankrupt as a result.

That's where things stand. The display of the banner and the Notice to the Public attracts the curiosity of passersby.