In the spring of 1925, six of the most successful scrap metal dealers in France received the same letter on Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs stationery, requesting their presence at a confidential meeting at the Hotel de Crillon. They were told the government had decided to dismantle the Eiffel Tower and sell seven thousand tons of iron for scrap, that the political sensitivity required a private sale, and that sealed bids would be submitted personally to the Deputy Director General.There was no decision, no tender, and no deputy director. There was Victor Lustig, a Bohemian con man with forty-seven documented aliases, five languages, roughly forty-five American arrests, and almost no convictions.One of the six paid. He never reported it. Four weeks later Lustig came back to Paris and sold the tower again.This episode traces how a story that was alr ...