Tuileries … “Art cannot embellish nature of its own charms, and the most precious lack solitary promenades. I confess simply that the effects of a happy distribution of walkways, lawns, flowers, and basins only inspire in me a cold and sterile admiration. What is sadder than these monotonous beauties! What is more ravishing than these triple rows of charming women who border the beautiful walkway of the Tuileries, in a summer soirée, in the most serene days of autumn and spring! All these groups vary infinitely which break down without ceasing to make up mutually establish between a thousand different circles in a continual circulation of meetings, ideas which increase, develop in passing from one group to another with the members always fluttering from these different societies. The mind is fed, electrified at the same time as the eyes rejoice in the handsomest spectacle that any rendez-vous could offer in any country in the world.”
RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE, Tableaux de la bonne compagnie, 1787
Mimic of Modes 