Even when Le Monde published a police file dating back to 2006, in which DSK had apparently been cautioned by police when being found with prostitutes in a parked car in the Bois de Boulogne, the general attitude was that this, while true, was little more than Nicolas Sarkozy’s dirty tricks team getting ammo for his election campaign. It wasn't much to get offended about. After all, one of France’s literary best-sellers (700,000 copies and 33 translations) had been the 2001 “The Sexual Life of Catherine M.”, in which the author, one of the country’s most respected museum curators, told in crude detail of swingers’ parties she shared with complete strangers met for the purpose in that very Bois de Boulogne.