He also invented the transparent, an early ancestor of the magic lantern and motion picture, for viewing moving bands of landscape paintings.

In this way he invented a new genre of play, the proverbe dramatique, a scene of light comedy designed to be a point of departure for a theatrical improvisation.

In addition to his work in the theatre, he was a talented artist, who made portraits in pen and watercolor in less than two hours of notable people that he met.

[2] In 1773, he was asked by the Duc de Chartres, the son of Louis-Philippe d'Orléans and the future Philippe Egalité, to design a garden around a small house that he was building to the northwest of Paris.

[3] It included a series of fabriques, or architectural structures, while illustrated all the styles known at the time; antiquity, exoticism, Chinese, Turkish, ruins, tombs, and rustic landscapes, all created to surprise and divert the visitor.