“All of this splendour has been planned for her [the customer’s] delight, and with a luxuriance that she had imagined was enjoyed only in Cleopatra’s court, oriental harems. . . . She strolls voluptuously through lobbies and foyers . . . her feet sink in soft rugs, she is surrounded by heavy Renaissance tables, oil paintings, and statues of nudes. . . . When she takes her seat, she is further flattered by the same colourful magnificence on the stage as in the lobby. . . . The royal favour of democracy it is: for in the “deluxe house” every man is a king and every woman a queen.”

—L. Lloyd, 1929, describing the Louxor Palais du Cin’ma in Paris. From the essay Egypt in Paris: 19th Century Monuments and Motifs by Cathie Bryan. As published in Imhotep Today: Egyptianizing Architecture, edited by Jean-Marcel Humbert and Clifford Price, 2003.