Paris

Abstract

Tourists visited Paris as the centre of civilisation, polite society and the arts, and the leading European court. Paris offered more than any other city. If it did not have the antiquities of Rome, the sensual allure of Venice, the art of Florence, or an opera house to compare with that of Naples, Paris did have an enormous range of cultural and social activities in which tourists could participate, an active artistic life, a large number of splendid sights and a royal court nearby at Versailles. This was aside from the city’s proximity to Britain: Paris could be reached from Dover in three days. Furthermore, the climate was acceptable all year long, unlike Rome or Naples. There was also no equivalent to the malarial Pontine marshes nearby.

that metropolis of dress and debauchery.

David Mallet (c. 1705–65), bearleader to James Newsham (1715–69), 1735¹