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Muscadins of ParisFrench dudes or exquisites, who aped the London mashers in the first French Revolution. Their dress was top-boots with thick soles, knee-breeches, a dress-coat with long tails, and a high stiff collar, and a thick cudgel called a constitution. It was thought to be John Bullish to assume a huskiness of voice, a discourtesy of manners, and a swaggering vulgarity of speech and behaviour. Probably so called from being “perfumed like a popinjay.” “Cockneys of London, Muscadins of Paris.” Byron: Don Juan, viii. 124. Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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