"Women in restaurants who studied their reflections 'with as much nonchalance as if they were in their own dressing rooms' struck James Grant as singular, but his comment--like so many others--highlights how readily visitors assumed that restaurant life was, in truth, a terrarium constructed in order to facilitate their own study of French character. For how could Grant be so certain what French ladies did 'in their own dressing rooms'?
"In Struggling to negotiate an appropriate balance between the pleasures of people watching and the possible consequences of being observed, visitors came to the conclusion that the French behaved in restaurants as they did in their own boudiors"
-Rebecca Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant
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