Crimes are only glorious during the first moment; they fade quickly. This kind of success lacks permanency; it is necessary promptly to supplement it with something else.
At the Elysée a literary ornament was wanted. A little savor of the Academy is not out of place in a brigand's cavern. M. Mérimée was available. It was his destiny to sign himself "the Empress's Jester." Madame de Montijo presented him to Louis Bonaparte, who accepted him, and who completed his Court with this insipid but plausible writer.
This Court was a heterogeneous collection; a dinner-wagon of basenesses, a menagerie of reptiles, a herbal of poisons.
Besides the trustworthy confederates who were for use, and the courtiers who were for ornament, there were the auxiliaries.
Certain circumstances called for reinforcements; sometimes these were women, the Flying Squadron.
Sometimes men: Saint-Arnaud, Espinasse, Saint-George, Maupas.
Sometimes neither men nor women: the Marquis de C.
The whole troop was noteworthy.
Let us say a few words of it.
There was Vieillard the preceptor, an atheist with a tinge of Catholicism, a good billiard player.