The Anglomania prevalent in their fashionable circles, from that of the Prince Royal down to the most flagrant tiger of Tortoni’s, has served, meanwhile, to naturalize in France (or rather in Paris, which, in point of fashion, constitutes France) a thousand English follies and peculiarities: such as steeple-chases, hurdle-races, pigeon-shooting, ballooning, fox-hunting, horse-racing, whist, sherry, and the jockey club. But there is no downright enjoyment in their adoption of any one of these pursuits. They love to talk about them , to wrangle about them , to fight about them; a challenge in the lobby at the opera, followed by a meeting next morning in the Bois de Boulogne, with all the cancans to which the event gives rise, are more gratifying to the French dandy, than the possession of Mameluke or a rubber at the Traveller’s Club. For years past, Lord Yarmouth has constituted the model in point of manners, and Hughes Ball in point of dress; not so much out of the admiration they bear to either, as for the purpose of parading and disputing among each other, concerning the comparative merit of their several imitations. If challenged with the obsequiousness of their worship, they reply by citing the influence exercised in similar matters in London by a flashy Parisian who was no prophet in his own country, and whose father they delight to point out walking shabby and unnoticed along the Boulevards. In England, they fancy any clever foreign charlatan, knowing in horse-flesh and the dice-box, may command the empire of the West.

Quoted from: “Paris in Light and Shade” In: The Metropolitan Magazine. No. LXX. February 1837: 117.