Company of animated film. Animation historian Michael Barrier speculates that one of Cohl's unnamed visitors may have been Bray instead of Barré. World War I On 11 March 1914, the Cohl family left New Jersey for Paris in response to a death in Suzanne's family. They never returned. Eight days later, a fire destroyed most of Éclair's American films, including all but two of Cohl's films (He Poses for His Portrait and Bewitched Matches [aka Les Allumettes ensorcelées (Fr.)]). The latter is the only one of the animated matches films Cohl made to survive. The American studio later moved to Tucson, Arizona. The chaos caused by the fire brought Éclair's work in France to a near-standstill. Cohl made a handful of films for Éclair in France, but the outbreak of World War I on 3 August 1914, forced those films to be held back for years before being released. By 11 August 80% of the French film industry had enlisted or had been drafted. Cohl (at 57 years of age) was too old to fight, but he volunteered as best he could while working at Éclair. His heart was no longer in his work, for his beloved wife Suzanne was slowly dying. In 1916, American cartoons took France by storm. Gaumont imported The Animated Grouch Chasers and for the first time since the early films of Blackton, animated films were being advertised with the name and face of their animator, Raoul Barré. If Barré is the individual who "stole" Cohl's techniques, this must have made Cohl furious (it didn't help that it was his former employer that was doing all the hoopla). It was at this moment that Cohl was approached by Benjamin Rabier, a popular illustrator of children's books. Rabier wanted Cohl to animate his characters. The producer for the series was René Navarre, a former actor who had become famous playing the anti-hero Fantomas in a series of films in 1913 and 1914. The distributor was Agence Générale Cinematographique (AGC). The trio parted company over Cohl's resentment that he was not being credited in the advertising. The series, Les Dessins animés de Benjamin Rabier (The Animated Drawings of Benjamin Rabier). starred Flambeau the War Dog. The only surviving film, Les Fiançailles de Flambeau [Flambeau's Wedding] (released 1917), has cute naturalistic characters from Rabier and coarse morbid humor from Cohl. By the time of Cohl's departure, Rabier had learned