Wanderlust: A History of Walking

by Rebecca Solnit

The writers of this edition of Larousse devoted a long article to the flâneur, whom they defined as a loiterer, a fritterer away of time. They associated him with the new urban pastimes of shopping and crowd watching. The flâneur, Larousse pointed out, could exist only in the great city, the metropolis, since provincial towns would afford too restricted a stage for his strolling.”