About Paris by Richard Harding Davis

I think the most satisfying thing about the race for the Grand Prix at Longchamps is the knowledge that every one in Paris is justifying your interest in the event by being just as much excited about it as you are. You have the satisfaction of feeling that you are with the crowd, or that the crowd is with you, as you choose to put it, and that you move in sympathy with hundreds of thousands of people, who, though they may not be at the race-track in person, wish they were, which is the next best thing, and which helps you in the form of moral support, at least. You feel that every one who passes by knows and approves of your idea of a holiday, and will quite understand when you ride out on the Champs Élysées at eleven o'clock in the morning with four other men packed in one fiacre, or when, for no apparent reason, you hurl your hat into the air.

There are two ways of reaching Longchamps, the right way and the wrong way. The wrong way is to go with the crowd the entire distance through the Bois, and so find yourself stopped half a mile from the race-track in a barricade of carriages and hired fiacres, with the wheels scraping, and the noses of the horses rubbing the backs of the carriages in front. This is entertaining for a quarter of an hour, as you will find that every American or English man and woman you have ever met is sitting within talking distance of you, and as you weave your way in and out like a shuttle in a great loom you have a chance to bow to a great many friends, and to gaze for several minutes at a time at all of the celebrities of Paris. But after an hour has passed, and you have discovered that your driver is not as clever as the others in stealing ground and pushing himself before his betters, you begin to grow hot, dusty, and cross, and when you do arrive at the track you are not in a proper frame of mind to lose money cheerfully and politely, like the true sportsman that you ought to be.