Horace de Viel-Castel

He was an intimate of Princess Mathilde and of Alfred de Musset, the right arm of Nieuwerkerke until his disgrace on 12 March 1863.

[10][11] They lived at 4 Avenue Marceau in Paris and at the Château de la Héruppe in Saint-Georges-Motel.

[12] In the early days of the Second Empire, Viel-Castel was promoted by his cousin Émilien de Nieuwerkerke, a prominent bonapartist, and on 1 December 1852 he was appointed curator of the newly created Musée des Souverains inside the Louvre.

Although rich in detail on history, plans, and policy, it is his prickly and malicious style which granted the author a dark posterity after their publication twenty years after his death: he was a misanthrope, and a reactionary.

[14] His favorite targets were Leon de Laborde, Prince Napoleon and Victor Hugo.