This witticism of Countess Lehon and the caustic remark of Madame de Girardin on the Bonapartist regime, which Marx quotes at the end of the paragraph, were forwarded to him, together with many other items used in The Eighteenth Brumaire, by Richard Reinhardt. a German refugee in Paris, Heinrich Heine’s secretary, In his letter to Ferdinand Lassalle of February 23, 1852 Marx quotes a letter to him from Reinhardt, in the following passage: “As for de Morny, the minister who resigned with Dupin, he was known as the of his mistress’ (Countess Lehon’s) husband, which caused Emile de Girardin’s wife to say that while it was not unprecedented for governments to be in the hands of men who were governed by their wives, none had ever been known to be in the hands of hommes entretenus [kept men]. Well, this same Countess Lehon holds a salon where she is one of Bonaparte’s most vociferous opponents and it was she who, on the occasion of the confiscation of the Orleans’ estates let fall ‘C’est le premier vol de l’aigle’.A pun: “It is the first flight of the eagle” and “It is the first theft of the eagle.”] Thanks to this remark of his wife’s, Emile de Girardin was expelled.” .