Just before the French Revolution, Bourbon courtiers had already exchanged the aristocratic sword for the bourgeois walking stick. During the Napoleonic Wars, Wellington had to reprove his British officers for carrying umbrellas. And Beau Brummel, a shopkeeper's grandson, became the tyrant dandy who took English fashion from courtier's breeches to businessman's trousers and from the tricorne to the top hat.
- From A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889 by Frederic Morton
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