Some potentially unfamiliar phrases and concepts used in the movie include lettres de cachet, (), lèse majesté (Contempt of the Sovereign), and the Mayor of the Palace. The bird also mentions having seen "Les Cloches de Corneville," having been to the Place d'Italie, and having attended the Neuilly festival (Neuilly-sur-Seine is the birthplace of both Prévert and Grimault). It also mentions "dernières cartouches" (Last Cartridges) which alludes to an episode in the Franco-Prussian War involving the Blue Division of the French marines, memorialized in a painting by that name by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville.