So many centuries have elapsed since Solomon informed the human kind there was ‘a time for all things,’ , that the axiom seems hardly worth repeating. Yet, which of us fails to rehearse it, on occasion of all the contre-temps that render our friends ridiculous, and ourselves uncomfortable ? To seize the right moment for our measures, is, in fact, one of the most difficult achievements imposed upon the wisdom of mankind. It has been said that a man must get up in the night, in order to eat a green gage at the exact moment of ripeness. I should like anybody to determine the precise age at which it is advisable to make a tour of the continent. Some time ago, business took me to Paris. It matters not to the render whether I went there to draw out Lord Bridgwater’s will or his tooth (concerning which, vide his Lordship’s law-suit with a celebrated dentist), or whether to reclaim Lord –’s runaway wife, or Mr L. W’s bad debts. There I was;, anxious to make the most of my visit. My friend Wrottesley (you know Wrottesley, my dear reader ?, everbody knows Wrottesley !) had often described the French capital to me, as an Elysium upon earth ; till, like Bob Fudge, I believed that the pheasants flew about ready roasted, and that the crossings were swept by opera-dancers. I never supped with Wrottesley at White’s without hearing him assert that nothing was to be had to eat, nothing to be had to drink, nothing to be had to apparel ourself withal, except in Paris:, to dine at Very’s,, to be dressed by Staub,, to gaze at Fanny Bias,, nay! (for the truth must out!) to take one’s rouge et noir at the Salon or Frascati’s, were, according to his dictum, the only things worth Jiving for, ‘ Good !’, said I to myself, as the courier’s calèche, in which I was a passenger, rattled along the avenue de Neuilly towards the Tuileries. “”I shall now live cleanly and like a gentleman.” I shall now eat, drink, and the rest of it, in a manner to console myself for all the years of hardship and privation I have been enduring in England. I shall now revel in the delights of the most refined and fascinating capital in Europe!”
What was my satisfaction, therefore, when, sauntering, the morning after my arrival, along the Rue de la Paix (which, by the way, ought to be denominated instead of the Rue Napoleon,, the British causeway .’) I encountered Wrottesley.

‘ My dear fellow,, how are you ?’ I exclaimed. ‘ Here I am,, come to take a month’s enjoyment at Paris,, for I thought it right to drop the man of business, in addressing an exclusive man of pleasure.
‘ I wish you joy!’ responded Wrottesley in a grumpily voice. ‘What any one can find to amuse him in this cursed place, is more than I can imagine!’
‘ I am aware,’ said I, ‘ that the Paris season is over. But, as a stranger here, I do not require balls and parties ;, the diversions, open to all the world, and all the year round, will quite satisfy me.’
‘ And what are they, I should like to know ?’, cried Wrottesley. ‘ There never was such a place as Paris! Nothing to be had!, nothing to eat, , nothing to drink,, nothing to wear! Every drop of good wine, every tolerable cook, goes to England ; and as to tailors,, the only rascal one can possibly employ here, is one of Meyer’s old workmen, from Conduit street. By Jove, Sir, one can’t so much as get a hat, without sending to London for it !’
‘ It strikes me,’ I ventured to interpose, ‘ that I have met, at least, a dozen well-dressed men in this very street.’
‘ English. Sir,, all English ! Whenever you see a tolerably gentlemanly-looking fellow, at the Opera or in the Bois, or at the Tuileries,, set him down for English. There we one or two decent Frenchmen about, I grant you, , Flahault, Flamarens, and two or three more. And, why?, because they dress so closely after the English, that it is almost impossible to detect them.’
‘ But surely,’ said I, ‘ Staub is considered, ‘
‘ The tailor of all the distinguished tigers in Europe! I know it! Because Nicholas is on the throne of Russia, does it prove that he knows how to dress ? For the love of mercy, man, look at this fellow with his peaked hat and beard, and a black satin dickey. When did you ever behold such an object as that in London ?’
‘ Often ! In the Park on Sundays;, in the Strand every day of the week.’
‘ I never go into the Park on Sundays: nor into the Strand any day of the week,’ said my supercilious friend. ‘ But I am going to England next week, (my hair is a foot long, and I cannot think of putting myself into the hands of a French coiffeur, to be shaven here, and curled there, like a poodle dog : I can stand nobody but Muddiman !) and I will make it a point to examine the two tiger-jungles you have pointed out.’
‘ Meanwhile,’ said I, ‘ pray assist me, by showing me a little of the carte du pays. Let us dine together to-day, and go to the opera.’
‘ Dine !, .Starve you mean. I will go with you, and write down our dinner at Lointier’s ;, Eating it, must depend upon circumstances. Except at Rothschild’s, one never sees an eatable dinner at Paris. How can the French be expected, my dear Sir, to dress a dinner? They have no meat,, they have no poultry ! Look at their mutton ;, good God, Sir, look at their mutton ! I dined the other day, by the way, with my friend Sir William, at Passy, and we had a capital haunch of real Southdown,, a perfect luxury!, (those London steam-boats are good for something!) and as fine a Thames salmon and lobster sauce as you ever ate. Sir William has a capital English cook. His beefsteaks would be as good as Dolly’s, if he had anything to make them of; and we tried him last week with turtle soup, which would have been capital, only we could get no turtle but tortoises.’
‘ I am no great gourmand‘ said I. ‘ But I own I like a bottle of good claret, and have no objection to a glass of Clos-de-Vougeot.’
‘ Claret ‘ reiterated Wrottesley. ‘ Who ever thought of drinking claret in Paris? All the best Bourdeaux goes to London,, Dublin,, Edinburgh ! It is well known that Johnson, Wilson, Barton, and Anderson, have bespoken all the prime vintages, till the year 1860. Claret?, don’t think of asking for claret. Seymour has capital sherry ; and Rouget, of the faubourg, the best port you ever drank. The claret, in Paris, will give you the cholera.’
‘ Well, well,, we should have had no time to enjoy it, had it been as good as Warrender’s,’ said I. ‘ Pray let us be in time for the opera. One’s first opera at Paris is an epoch in one’s life.’
‘ Do you really mean, my dear fellow, that you are going to the French Opera?’ cried Wrottesley, with an air of consternation. ‘ Why there is no such thing as an orchestra here now, except at the Opera italienne, which is closed. Nothing in nature can be more mesquin than the French opera.!’
The name of Fanny Bias involuntarily burst from my lips.
‘ Ah ! poor Fanny!’ sighed he. ‘I went to visit her grave, the other day, at Pere la Chaise. Where do you see such a dancer now-a-days? Poor Fanny !’
‘ButTaglioni?’
‘ A very fine creature, but no dancer ! And if the opera were worth seeing,, where would you go to see it? Unless you have a friend to lend you a box (which no friend, rich enough to have a box, is friendly enough to do), how are you to go to the Opera ? You can’t go to the balcon or the stalles, and put yourself on evidence by the side of some Regent-street haberdasher, and his anything but chaste moitié, In London any man, for half-a-guinea, is sure of a good place, and may go and enjoy the opera like a gentleman,, capital singing,, capital dancing! What does one enjoy at Paris? The screeching of Mdlle. Durus, and the decrepitude of Albert!, in the midst of an audience consisting of men in dusty boots, and women wrapped up in shawls and bonnets ?’
I was petrified.
‘And the Salon? Could you not take me with you to sup at the Salon?’ I should like to see the style of the thing.’
‘ Do you belong to Crockford’s ?’
‘ I do.’
‘ Then take my advice, and don’t disgust yourself by collision with such canaille as frequent the Salon and Frascati. No gentleman can play at the Salon.’ Talk to me of the Travellers’,, talk to me of Crockford’s! One has literally got spoiled for play, any where but in London.’
‘ There seems, indeed, to be very litlle going on here,’ said I, despondingly. ‘ I wish I had brought over my horses. I find there are hurdle races and all sorts of things in the Bois; and one can’t get on without one’s horses.’
‘ No decent person ever thinks of going into the Bois,’ cried Wrottesley, ‘ lest he should be ridden down by his own hair-dresser, or the editor of one of the penny papers. Such animals as one sees there,, biped, as well as quadruped ! Fallows with a ribbon,, which they probably filched from their master’s counter; and moustachios, which they probably hire from some perruquier in the Palais Royal. England, Sir,, England is the only place where one can be sure of one’s society. Do step with me into the English chemist’s. I want some lavender water.’

Weary of his universal discontent, I crept out of the dinner engagement I had proposed; and should have been at some pains to discover the cause of this miraculous revolution in his sentiments, had not the arrival of young Sir Richard Anstry, in the hotel I inhabited, supplied me with a solution of the enigma. In him, I discerned the type of my original Wrottesley. In him, I saw that brilliant sense of boyish enjoyment which converted the Paris of 1814 into a Paradise for my fastidious friend. Duvernay was Fanny Bias to him;, the Cafe de Paris, his Very’s;, the Salon his Crockford’s. Every day, I saw his cabriolet (after waiting three hours in the Court yard, while the bath and toilet of the young dandy were in slow progression) packed with patés from Chevets, and Champagne and Maraschino from Corcellet’s, for a partie fine to Marly or Montmorency. Every night, I heard him depart anew, for the Rue Richelieu; every morning, between four and six, I heard his door opened by his yawning valet, to admit the young dissipateur. There was always a rose in bis button-hole,, always a smile on his face. ‘ By Jove ! this is the only city to live in !’ I heard him exclaim, one evening, while shaking hands cordially with a brother Etonian. London is the cursedest place on earth; , all smoke, psalm-singing, and small beer. Give me Paris, with its light atmosphere,, light hearts, , light heads, , light reputations!’

From that moment I decided that no man should visit Paris in search of pleasure, after the attainment of his twenty-lirst birth-day, and years of discretion.

From: The Court Journal. Gazette of the fashionable world. No. 230. September 21, 1833.