"It is the place where the richest merchants go to relax, the playground of the greatest artists, the wisest philosophers, cleverest actors and acrobats and jugglers of the most amusing kind. It dictates Chinese taste, has the most beautiful women, the smallest feet, the latest fashions, the most cultivated language."
About Suzhou in Voyage a la Chine,
J.C.Huttner,1799
