Stephen Clarke - 1000 Years of Annoying the French

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...

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

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

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

The public roasting given to Frances patron saint, or what really happened in 1431.

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

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

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

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

Proof that the French didnt invent their national drink.

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

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

Which it might well have been, if the French hadnt threatened to kill a British cow...

1776: the Brits werent the only ones getting booted out of America.

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

Another non-French idea.

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

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

Napoleons downfall at the hands (and feet) of the Iron Duke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dont mention Dunkirk.

Dont mention collaboration or the number of French soldiers who actually landed on D-Day either.

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

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

Mischievous things said by and about the French.

Further reading in English and franais.

To the Crime 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 Leas 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 dun 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

One of the most frequent questions I get asked when doing readings and talks is: why is there such a lovehate 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, its 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 isnt history at all. Its here and now.

William Faulkner was talking about the Southern USA when he said that the past is never dead. In fact, its 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 Frances greatest general, Napoleon Bonaparte. Essentially, a two-century-old defeat is brandished in the face of every French visitor to Britains diplomatic headquarters in Frances own capital city.

This is not tactless or provocative relations couldnt be better between the British Embassy and their French hosts its simply there. Just as the battle between the sexes will never end (we hope), neither will the millennium-old rivalry between the French and anyone who happens to be born speaking English.

And the most interesting thing for me was that while researching this book, I found that our versions of the same events are like two completely different stories. The French see history through tricolour-tinted glasses and blame the Brits (and after about 1800, the Americans) for pretty well every misfortune that has ever befallen France. Sometimes theyre right we have done some nasty things to the French in the past but often theyre hilariously wrong, and I have tried to set the record straight.

I realize that any book that gives a balanced view of history is going to irritate French people a lot. So Im really sorry, France, but the 1000 years of being annoyed by les Anglo-Saxons arent over yet

Stephen Clarke, January 2010

France, featuring the key places of historical interest famous and otherwise mentioned in this book.