 Carpentier was an admirer of the elegance and wit in the work of satirical French writers and artists of the eighteenth century, and often employed grotesques in his descriptions to ridicule the ostentation of colonial aristocracy.Examples include Ti Noel's comparison of wax heads at a barber's shop to white men's heads being served at a banquet, or the portrayal of the decadence of Mademoiselle Floridor, a fourth-rate actress who performs for slaves as an outlet for her desire to act.Carpentier further satirizes the pomp of those in power through a series of details of protocol and ceremony whose cumulative effects ridicule the object of description, as is the case with Henri Christophe's chambers.