[The Book of Snobs by William Makepeace Thackeray]@TWC D-Link bookThe Book of Snobs CHAPTER XXIII--ENGLISH SNOBS ON THE CONTINENT 7/8
Year after year scores of Muffs, in various places in the world, are victimised by Legg and Macer.
The story is so stale, the trick of seduction so entirely old and clumsy, that it is only a wonder people can be taken in any more: but the temptations of vice and gentility together are too much for young English Snobs, and those simple young victims are caught fresh every day.
Though it is only to be kicked and cheated by men of fashion, your true British Snob will present himself for the honour. I need not allude here to that very common British Snob, who makes desperate efforts at becoming intimate with the great Continental aristocracy, such as old Rolls, the baker, who has set up his quarters in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and will receive none but Carlists, and no French gentleman under the rank of a Marquis.
We can all of us laugh at THAT fellow's pretensions well enough--we who tremble before a great man of our own nation.
But, as you say, my brave and honest John Bull of a Snob, a French Marquis of twenty descents is very different from an English Peer; and a pack of beggarly German and Italian Fuersten and Principi awaken the scorn of an honest-minded Briton.
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