It's all so famous and romanticized now, with people like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and so on gadding about all over the place, getting into boxing matches with each other, drinking themselves to death, having affairs, writing books, touring around drunkenly, etc. It defines a whole section of the American artistic past in a way.
But what was contemporary French and specifically Parisian opinion of all this? Were they glad to have these high-living Americans hanging around all the time? Were people upset by their lifestyle? Were French versions of their writings popular at the time?
Brooke L. Blower covers this in her book, Becoming Americans in Paris: Transatlantic Politics and Culture between the World Wars, particularly Chapter 2: Reluctant Hosts. She writes, "In the 1920s, Parisians of various political leanings developed an acute sense that Americans had formed a vibrant and troubling subculture right at the heart of their city. Aware of Americans' growing confidence and changing relationship to the capital, Parisians deplored how visitors paraded brashly through the city center as if Paris existed solely for their own enjoyment." (p. 57) I don't have the book in front of me, but I remember her including some great details from the Parisian police archives.