At dinner today Francis Maynard recounted the little cause which had brought about the fall of the Vendôme Column.
A tart called Menier or Magnier who enjoyed a certain notoriety had been abandoned by her rich protector on account of her relations with an engineer. During the Commune, finding herself extremely short of cash, she blamed her poverty on her lover, and he racked his brains to discover some way of making money. He had the idea of applying the system of the bevel-cut to the column, a system without which it would have been virtually impossible to demolish it, and as a reward for his idea he was paid a total of 6,000 francs which he have his mistress.
- Edmund de Goncourt, Tuesday, 3 December 1878