While making their way to Paris, they are hired to pose for a painter (Fritz Leiber), Vidocq as Saint George and Vernet as the dragon.
Two lesser-known movies, Vidocq (2001) and Russian Ark (2002), had also previously been shot with the same camera, the latter notably consisting of a single long take (no cuts).
The character of Lecoq was based on a real-life thief turned police officer, Eugène François Vidocq (1775–1857), whose own memoirs, Les Vrais Mémoires de Vidocq, mixed fiction and fact.
The character of Javert is loosely based on Eugène François Vidocq, a criminal and adventurer who became a police official, though Vidocq wrote that he never arrested anyone who stole out of need.