wishes to return to his home town to lead his former life. So, after having escaped from Doctor Prosope and joined Belvoux, the young man tries to hide his exceptional vision from those around him. Only his friend, Doctor Bare, discovers the truth but, powerless, cannot prevent his slow death caused by serious health problems. Apart from some apparent similarities, Jean Lebris does not have the usual superhero characteristics. First of all, he does not transform himself into a vigilante, nor does he confront Prosope in a spectacular fight. Nor does he have a pseudonym, since the name "L'Homme truqué" is only the title of the novel, but is not used again in the body of the text. Moreover, this name, which means the will to deceive by diverting something from its primary function, illustrates all the ambiguity of his superhuman status. Lebris dies in the space of a few pages and Bare himself is murdered without managing to prevent the agents of Prosope from recovering the famous prostheses. Without ever appearing as a superhero, Jean Lebris is the hero of a pessimistic novel where the sense of justice is totally absent. A nuanced view of progress With this short novel, Maurice Renard, far from singing the praises of an extraordinary medical experiment, takes a nuanced look at scientific progress. He illustrates one of the inclinations of the scientific-marvel novel, that is to say, to put in narrative the scientific conjecture in order to propose to the reader another possible world. The main character reveals his realization that he is only the guinea pig of a doctor who has stripped him of his identity. His return to his native village is only a temporary shelter before the return of Doctor Prosope who has come to protect the secret of his formidable invention. And if he is the object of all the attention of the scientist, it is only because he is the only one to have revealed positive results. The concern generated by the transhumanist novelty is also expressed through the character of Dr. Bare, confidant and doctor of Jean Lebris, who is surprised during the auscultation, that the use of a fixed ocular apparatus does not cause strong inflammation. In the course of the story, Jean Lebris reveals that the laboratory, located in the heart of Europe, is staffed by people of many different nationalities, speaking an invented language.