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Book Reviews

Ecarte

Ecarte, or the Salons of Paris- " If the critics," says the Weekly Review, "have had enough of fashionable novels,' the public have not: and it is with the latter alone that Authors and Publishers have chiefly to do. We have before as the unpublished sheets of a novel, the chief scenes of which are different from any that are to be found in its fashionable predecessors. The public *Hells' of Paris are pretty well known to most of the male portion of English visitors to that ‘pleasant' but ' wrong' capital; much better indeed than the London ones; — but the private Salons, which have long been established there under high auspices for the avowed purpose of easing their visitors of superfluous ennui, and money at the same time, have been as yet penetrated by but few, and those chiefly among the upper classes of our idlers abroad. The public in general will therefore be not a little amused, and perchance, benefitted, by the singular expose that is here made of those enticing places— where beauty and ecarté vie with each other in drawing in young gentlemen of all nations, (and old ones too), to their willing fate, and where, if you escape the one, it is but to yield before the other. Wr are given expressly to understand in these pages, that the details, both as to characters and incidents, are founded on fact, and we see no reason to doubt this statement.” London Evening Standard Monday 23 March 1829


 Ecarté, or the Salons of Paris. We understand that several well known characters about town are portrayed in the forthcoming novel of Ecarte which will be found as descriptive of those of our countrymen who are in the habit of frequenting the gay salons of Paris, as it is of our more lively neighbours. The author who has seen much of French female society, is said to have depicted in strong colours the dangerous influence of their fascinations on young Englishmen. London Evening Standard Tues March 1829


Ecarte. —Among the variety of curious matter with which this Novel abounds, there are certain scenes developed having occurred in Pans, which throw into' considerable light the nature of certain indulgences peculiar to a highly accredited class of public men. If the Author has as we strongly suspect, introduced such a personage, an individual particularly alluded to, we can no longer wonder at the failure of houses of hitherto unquestioned solidity: neither can we feel surprise at the daring and unprecedented fraud with which the attention of the public has lately been occupied. London Courier and Evening Gazette Fri 17 April 1829...