Flappers & Fiction

When the chestnut trees bloom in May, all of Paris turns its eyes toward Longchamps. This charming chronicle captures the absolute height of the social season, where the Grand Prix serves as far more than a mere sporting event. You will meet military legends like General Fleury and Marshal MacMahon, who treat equitation as a serious science. But the real spectacle lies in the crowd itself. From the duchess in her carriage to the tradesman betting his francs, the entire city parades through the Bois de Boulogne in a dazzling, dusty display of fashion and feverish excitement.

Paris in the 1830s had a perfectly engineered hierarchy, and the Union Club sat at its summit: a man could possess the genius of Goethe and the fortune of a baron, yet if his name were Durand, his application would be considered audacious. Count D’Orsay understood this perfectly, which is perhaps why he turned a tailor’s unpaid bill into a fashion sensation and a canvas curtain into a dozen orders from Lord Chesterfield. Behind the elegance, everything was a wager.