There's something very democratic about French patisseries and salons de the.
You can waltz in. Buy just ONE cookie (i.e. a macaron) or tarte.And not be thrown out or ignored or snubbed. 
And that one macaron or eclair won't break the bank either.
Look at these beautiful petit fours.They ARE petite! Still you can have just as much fun with one of these as with a whole gateau (cake).
And choosing is a big part of the fun too.
If you go into a tea salon in Paris, you can feel like Marie-Antoinette for an afternoon. The lovely china, the attentive service, the beautiful desserts.
All the stuff of fine memories or souvenirs as the French say.
We have Marcel Proust's Madeleine in Remembrances Of Things Past to thank for reminding us of the importance of nostalgia and food. Perhaps that why it's hard for me to let go of Fauchon. I have many memories of looking at their beautiful food, pretending I was in Paris, with just a hop on the N train...
"...And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…"
