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Under the Ancien Régime and well into the nineteenth century, the Longchamp promenade was an unmissable attraction for all Parisians. At this event, luxurious coaches were seen converging on the square of Place Louis XV, going through the central avenue of the Elysian Fields (Champs-Elysées), then heading towards the wood of Boulogne, where they ended up sauntering up and down the avenues which surrounded Longchamp Abbey. While the elegant ones hoped for a show, the people gathered on the Elysian Fields were keen to see through the cracks of the veneer and denounce, at times angrily, the participants’s ludicrous or indecent behaviour. Although tolerance towards the presence of “loud critics” evolved with the various political regimes, mud-slinging never ceased to be integral to such a social event.