Someone who makes money off the antics of a trained monkey.
“On bears and popinjays (parrots) there was an admittance toll levied, which was paid at the Passage du Petit-Châtelet, in front of the Petit-Pont. As for monkeys, ‘The Rules Governing the Trades of Paris, by Etienne Boilève, Provost of this City’, lays down the following: ‘The Merchant who brings a Monkey to sell must pay four deniers: and if the Monkey belongs to someone who has bought it for his own amusement, it is exempt, and if the Monkey belongs to an exhibitor, the exhibitor must give a performance for the toll-collector, and in exchange for his performance be exempted on everything he buys for his needs: and mistrels too are exempted in exchange for singing one verse of a song.’ What this amounts to is that the animal exhibitor, instead of paying the four-denier toll the merchant has to pay, would pay his due in songs and capers. Hence the expression: payer en monnaie de singe, literally, to pay with monkey money, i.e., avoid paying a debt, with fine words and empty promises.”
Jacques Yonnet, Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City (1954).
[Translated by Christine Donougher]
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