Стефан Кларк: 1000 Years of Annoying the French

About the Book

Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory?

Non! William the Conqueror was a Norman and hated the French.

Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc?

Non! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers.

Was the guillotine a French invention?

Non! It was invented in Yorkshire.

Ten centuries' worth of French historical 'facts' bite the dust as Stephen Clarke looks at what has really been going on since 1066...

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraphs

English Synonyms for 'Annoy'

Introduction

1 When Is a Frenchman Not a Frenchman?

1066: the Normans cross the Channel to kick the Anglo-Saxons into shape for a 1000-year career of annoying the French .

2 French-bashing in Its Infancy

As performed by some great – and some frankly awful – Kings of England. (Queens were still illegal.)

3 The Hundred Years War: A Huge Mistake

The ‘hundred’ years from 1337 to 1453: more than just a mathematical error .

4 Joan of Arc: A Martyr to French Propaganda

The public roasting given to France’s patron saint, or what really happened in 1431 .

5 Calais: The Last Last Bit of English Territory in France

The French town that was a British colony for 200 years, and the scene of Henry VIII’s greatest fashion moment .

6 Mary Queen of Scots: A French Head on Scottish Shoulders

When she was executed, no one was more annoyed than the French. Apart from Mary herself, of course .

7 French Canada, or How to Lose a Colony

French kings let the Brits steal the top half of a continent .

8 Charles II: The Man Who Taught Everyone to Distrust French Motives for Doing Absolutely Anything

The English fop who sought political asylum in Paris, betrayed his own country and then accidentally tricked the French into betraying themselves .

9 Champagne: Dom Pérignon Gets It Wrong

Proof that the French didn’t invent their national drink .

10 Eclipsing the Sun King

Louis XIV (1638 – 1715), the French King with a giant bladder and an ego to match .

11 Voltaire: A Frenchman Who Loved to Get France in the Merde

The eighteenth-century French thinker who thought more of Britain than of France .

12 Why Isn’t America Called L’Amérique?

Which it might well have been, if the French hadn’t threatened to kill a British cow . . .

13 American Independence – from France

1776: the Brits weren’t the only ones getting booted out of America .

14 India and Tahiti: France Gets Lost in Paradise

A selection of historical Frenchmen lose India, fail to notice Australia and give sexually transmitted diseases to Pacific islanders .

15 The Guillotine, a British Invention

Another non-French idea .

16 The French Revolution: Let Them Eat Cake. Or Failing That, Each Other

The tragi-comic truth about Bastille Day, Marie-Antoinette and the impoverished aristos.

17 Napoleon: If Je Ruled the World

The rise of Bonaparte: soldier, emperor, lover ofJosephine and creator of the French brothel .

18 Wellington Puts the Boot in on Boney

Napoleon’s downfall at the hands (and feet) of the Iron Duke .

19 Food, Victorious Food

The baguette, the croissant and le steak: the real story behind three quintessentially ‘French’ foodstuffs .

20 The Romantics: The Brits Trash French Art

How some hot-blooded Anglais stirred up French culture in the early 1800s .

21 How Britain Killed Off the Last French Royals

… and the Victorians said, ‘It was an accident, honest.’ Three times .

22 Why All French Wine Comes from America

The grape disease heroically cured (and, less heroically, caused) by the Americans .

23 Edward VII Has a Frolicking Good Time in Paris

‘Dirty Bertie’, the playboy prince who seduced France into signing the Entente Cordiale .

24 Britain and France Fight Side by Side for Once

World War One, in which English-speaking soldiers took French leave, used French letters and sang rude songs about the mesdemoiselles .

25 World War Two, Part One

Don’t mention Dunkirk .

26 World War Two, Part Two

Don’t mention collaboration or the number of French soldiers who actually landed on D-Day either .

27 Le Temps du Payback

From de Gaulle to Thatcher, or Chanel handbags at ten paces .

28 Napoleon’s Dream Comes True

The Channel Tunnel and some right royal gaffes that prove we’ve learned nothing from the past 1000 years .

Quotations

Mischievous things said by and about the French .

Select Bibliography

Further reading in English and français.

Illustration Credits

Index

About the Author

Also by Stephen Clarke

Copyright

1000 YEARS OF

ANNOYING THE

FRENCH

Stephen Clarke

To the Crimée Crew for their thousand years of patience, and especially to N., who helped me through every battle.

Merci to my editor Selina Walker for her sense of history in reminding me constantly of my deadline.

And to everyone at Susanna Lea’s agency for their role in making this whole histoire possible.

‘The English, by nature, always want to fight their neighbours for no reason, which is why they all die badly.’

From the Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris ,

written during the Hundred Years War

‘We have been, we are, and I trust we always will be, detested by the French.’

The Duke of Wellington

A selection of English synonyms for ‘annoy ’

Provoke, infuriate, anger, incense, arouse, offend, affront, outrage, aggrieve, wound, hurt, sting, embitter, irritate, aggravate, exasperate, peeve, miff, ruffle, rile, rankle, enrage, infuriate, madden, drive crazy/mad/insane, get up the back/on the tits of, bust the balls of, piss off.

All of these have been done to France, and more …

Introduction

One of the most frequent questions I get asked when doing readings and talks is: why is there such a love–hate relationship between the French and the Brits?

The love is easy to explain: despite what we might say in public, we find each other irresistibly sexy. The hate is more of a problem. For a start, it’s mistrust rather than hatred. But why is it even there, in these days of Entente Cordiale and European peace?

Like everyone else, I always knew that the mistrust had something to do with 1066, Agincourt, Waterloo and all that, but I wondered why it persisted. After all, most of our battles were too far in the past to have much effect on the present, surely? So I decided to delve into that past and come up with a more accurate answer.

And having written this book, I finally understand where the never-ending tensions come from. The fact is that our history isn’t history at all. It’s here and now.

William Faulkner was talking about the Southern USA when he said that ‘the past is never dead. In fact, it’s not even past.’ But exactly the same thing can be said about the French and the Brits; no matter what we try to do in the present, the past will always march up and slap us in the face.

To give the simplest of examples: go into the British Embassy in Paris, and what do you see in the first anteroom you enter? A gigantic portrait of the Duke of Wellington, the man who effectively ended the career of France’s greatest general, Napoleon Bonaparte. Essentially, a two-century-old defeat is brandished in the face of every French visitor to Britain’s diplomatic headquarters … in France’s own capital city.