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It was at the inspiration of these intimate associates that during his
Presidency Louis Bonaparte, a species of Dutch Machiavelli, went hither
and thither, to the Chamber and elsewhere, to Tours, to Ham, to Dijon,
snuffling, with a sleepy air, speeches full of treason.
The Elysée, wretched as it was, holds a place in the age. The Elysée, has
engendered catastrophes and ridicule.
One cannot pass it over in silence.
The Elysée was the disquieting and dark corner of Paris. In this bad
spot, the denizens were little and formidable. They formed a family
circle--of dwarfs. They had their maxim: to enjoy themselves. They lived
on public death. There they inhaled shame, and they throve on that which
kills others. It was there that was reared up with art, purpose,
industry, and goodwill, the decadence of France. There worked the bought,
fed, and obliging public men;--read prostituted. Even literature was
compounded there as we have shown; Vieillard was a classic of 1830, Morny
created Choufleury, Louis Bonaparte was a candidate for the Academy.
Strange place. Rambouillet's hotel mingled itself with the house of
Bancal. The Elysée has been the laboratory, the counting-house, the
confessional, the alcove, the den of the reign. The Elysée assumed to
govern everything, even the morals--above all the morals. It spread the
paint on the bosom of women at the same time as the color on the faces of
the men. It set the fashion for toilette and for music. It invented the
crinoline and the operetta. At the Elysée a certain ugliness was
considered as elegance; that which makes the countenance noble was there
scoffed at, as was that which makes the soul great; the phrase, "human
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