Like many people, I found the news of Jane Birkin’s death on Friday July 16, 2023, profoundly sad. For me it marked the end of an era, for myself and for others brought up in the ’60s and ’70s when life certainly did swing to a different tune.

I met the famous actress and singer at the opening of an excellent and revealing exhibition at the Calais Fine Arts Museum (Summer 2018). The photos at Jane & Serge, a Family Album were taken by Andrew Birkin, her photographer brother. Both Jane and Andrew were at the opening.

My memories of Jane Birkin come from my teenage years. It was back in 1969 that I heard that notorious breathy moaning song of Je t’aime…moi non plus (I love you…neither do I)…one of my great memories. The song was a huge hit, written by Serge Gainsbourg and performed by him and Jane Birkin. It was banned by the BBC and condemned by the Vatican. It’s one of those songs that a whole generation will never forget.

Jane Birkin was the daughter of David Birkin, a Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander and French Resistance fighter, and Judy Campbell, an actress. She followed in her mother’s footsteps and came to public notice in a nude appearance in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-up (another milestone in my young teenage life).

Jane Birkin married the composer John Barry in 1967; their daughter Kate was born in 1967. The couple divorced in 1968; Kate died in Paris in 2013.

Jane met Serge Gainsbourg, the man who the French press described as l’homme à tête de chou (‘the man with the cabbage head’) in 1969. He was 41; she was 20.

Serge was already the darling of the French intellectual scene with a slew of songs, lyrics and music. But their first meeting was not particularly auspicious. She found him arrogant; he ignored her.

Serge’s Russian-Jewish émigré background was a far cry from Jane’s middle-class, very English experience. She was 20 years younger than him.

What was he like? I asked her at the exhibition. “He could be fairly impossible” she answered with her delightful gap-toothy grin. And their relationship? “He was a genius writer; I was just pretty” was her response.

The couple were together for 11 years and had a daughter Charlotte before parting company in 1980. They remained very close and he continued to write songs for her which she performed.

Jane Birkin was much more than ‘just pretty’. She was a good actress as well as singer and a major public figure in France.

After her death President Macron tweeted “Because she embodied freedom, because she sang the most beautiful words of our language, Jane Birkin was a French icon. A complete artist, her voice was as sweet as her engagements were fiery. She bequeaths us tunes and images that will never leave us.”

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, described her as “the most Parisian of the English”. Perhaps the greatest French compliment of all?

Her funeral was attended by stars like Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Charlotte Rampling, Vanessa Paradis and Brigitte Macron. Outside, people filled the space, carrying banners and flowers.

At the exhibition in Calais, Jane Birkin was lovely, a slight gamin figure dressed in blue jeans and black sweater, with a way of speaking that was half-French, half-English. Andrew Birkin’s photographs were stunning, telling the story of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg in so many different places and so many different times, a walk through the ’60s and ’70s when life was so different

Andrew had just as interesting a story of his relationship with Gainsbourg. He was working as a screenwriter and film director at the time (on films like Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour).

They formed a close trio as Jane described: “I fell in love with Serge, Andrew fell in love with Serge, Serge fell in love with Andrew; we were a trio, in Yugoslavia, France, Spain, Italy. Andrew came with us everywhere, and, with his camera, our joy, our laughter, our total surprise was recorded by him”.

Andrew also stayed in close touch. At the exhibition he remembered the last time they were together. Andrew took a bottle of absinthe to Serge’s house. They watched a video, Serge fell asleep, and Andrew left. Serge died on March 2, 1991 of a heart attack.

Jane Birkin will be buried at Montparnasse Cemetery where Serge Gainsbourg is buried alongside figures like Alfred Dreyfus, Charles Baudelaire, Margarite Duras, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir (rather more appropriate to Gainsbourg and his life). Kate Barry, Jane’s daughter is also buried here. We don’t yet know exactly where; I don’t know if there is room beside either Serge or Kate. Let’s hope they are all nearby.

I, along with many others, will visit and put flowers on the grave of this iconic figure and ghost from my past.

RIP Jane Birkin.

Jane Mallory Birkin, actor and singer, born 14 December 1946; died 16 July 2023.

Serge Gainsbourg’s house at Rue de Verneuil, 75005 Paris, is open, inspired and run by his daughter Charlotte. A museum will open opposite in on 23 September, 2023.

More about Paris

Quick Guide to Paris
Van Gogh’s Paris

More about Calais – a most surprising City

Guide to Calais – There’s so much to see and do
The Calais Dragon roars through the streets
Lace and Fashion Museum in Calais

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My Summer 2020 France trip started two days after the official British FCO ban on anything but essential travel to France was lifted on July 4.

The trip ran from July 6 to July 27, 2020. Events in this Covid-19 world are moving fast so some of these experiences might not apply. But I thought it worth writing a full account because who knows? History might repeat itself.

I booked Eurotunnel for a morning departure on July 6 and set off early with my partner for Folkestone. There’d been a slight price rise from the previous week but it was easy and quick to book. We felt like pioneers.

Summer 2020 France: Eurotunnel’s hiccup

The Eurotunnel terminal was almost deserted and a sad sight with every outlet except Starbucks shuttered. We’d naively reckoned we could buy the headlight stickers you need in France to redirect your headlights at the terminal. But don’t worry if this happens to you as well. There’s a solution when you arrive in France.

Not everyone was wearing masks in the main terminal building but a one-way system at Starbucks was in place for ordering and getting that much-needed coffee. No need to hurry we thought. The board announcing departures was saying ‘Wait for call’. So we waited then moved to the departure zone. Too late. Everyone was waiting for the next shuttle. It was not a good start as we’d planned to visit Fontainebleau Palace later that day. No marks to Eurotunnel for that error.

Eurotunnel Crossing

The Eurotunnel trip itself was easy, though do remember that all the toilets on the train are closed. And if you need those headlight stickers, maps, warning triangles, in fact almost anything you’ve forgotten there is a solution. Stop at the very useful service station just after leaving Eurotunnel on the road signposted to Calais.

The car park was full of drivers fixing those newly bought stickers, which are of course, designed to confuse unless you’re a sticker-locating mechanic. Then we drove out to the main roundabout where there’s a choice of motorways to Paris and other destinations.

Then it was on to the autoroute and the drive to Fontainebleau where I’d booked a hotel. A couple of kilometres after we left Calais we saw the last UK car we were to come across for a couple of weeks.

Summer 2020 in France: Fontainebleau

France began easing restrictions at the end of May and by mid-June many of the hotels were open. But many are open on a very restricted basis. We had booked at the Hotel Le Richelieu in Fontainebleau but still had to ring the bell when we arrived as reception was deserted. The hotel was very empty and their restaurant was closed on a Monday. There were bottles of hand sanitiser everywhere; the room sporting a kind of shabby chic/industrial design decor was spotless.

We walked into the centre of town which was buzzing. Apart from a few people wearing masks, life seemed normal. A meal on a sunny pavement at the Bistro des Amis felt very far away from London.

Breakfast at the hotel the following morning was just as it had always been though there were more individual packets of food than before. We served ourselves; the waiter brought coffee.

Driving through France

We drove down on Monday/Tuesday July 6/7. The autoroutes were remarkably clear, apart from those near Paris and Clermont Ferrand. The A77, imaginatively named as the Autoroute des Arbres (Autoroute of the Trees) was so traffic-free that we could slow down to photograph some of the road signs which show what tree it is you’re passing. The French are very good at relieving boredom on a long drive.

Returning was slightly different. We came back on Sunday/Monday July 26/27. On Sunday, driving north, we were passed by Belgians and Dutch driving like fury to get home. The southbound lanes were clogged; full of those driving south for their holidays. Monday saw just the odd Belgian or Dutch going home and the southbound lanes clearer.

The moral of this tale? Avoid weekend driving, particularly the start and end of holidays and on those busy dates: around July 14th and August 14th.

Summer 2020 in the Auvergne

My French house is in the Auvergne, near Le Puy-en-Velay. Since 2000, the city has thrived. Le Puy with its strange volcanic outcrops with religious buildings or statues perched on the tops, is the starting point for one of the most popular, and well organised, pilgrim routes leading to St. James of Compostella in Spain.

Our nearby local village is one of the first stopping points outside Le Puy. We arrived at maximum pilgrim rush hour time. The local bar was full of walkers; business was clearly booming which makes sense. A self-guided walk along well-marked paths from village to village in this remote region is about as social distancing as you can get.

Outdoors in the Auvergne

Everywhere we went we saw bottles of sanitising liquid. They were even fastened to gate posts and fences at the open-air vide grenier we indulged in which makes perfect sense. Everything at such a sale is in cash; items are picked up and put down again, or in my case haggled over (usually totally unsuccessfully) and put into a large bag. I am a complete push-over when it comes to vide greniers, car boot sales, brocante, etc.

If you want somewhere remote, try the Auvergne, the glorious region in central France.

Summer 2020 in France: Restrictions again

On Monday July 20^th, with a rising number of covid-19 cases in France, the French government re-introduced the wearing of masks. The French took it in their stride. There was no fuss, no ridiculous outrage about loss of persomal ‘freedom’, and from that day on everyone wore a mask in public.

The shops enforced the rule (except in the case of one lady in Tinel who looked so daft that the staff left her well alone). I’d gone in just before her without a mask to be met by an assistant asking me to put one on. I clearly looked quite normal.

The Château of Fontainebleau which we visited on the way back enforced the rule absolutely, anybody not wearing one is asked to leave. However we didn’t have to pre-book, unlike some attractions in France.

Summer 2020 in France: Hotels and Restaurants on the Journey Home

This was a little different from our drive down to the Haute-Loire. With the new restrictions, the hotels were playing it very safe.

Our first stop was the Hôtel les Grands Chênes, just outside Saint Fargeau at Les Berthes Bailly. It’s a delightful place, with well-sized bedrooms, good bathrooms, a swimming pool and badminton nets set out in a very large garden. No masks outside, but step inside and they were put on immediately.

Breakfast was served in a pretty yellow-walled dining room. Bread, butter, hard-boiled eggs, cereals, fruit (in individual plastic containers), cheese, ham and yoghurts were all on one table but we had to go up to the table to order them. Rachael, the English owner, and her assistant then handed them to you on plates. Coffee or tea was served directly at the table. It was slightly strange but easy enough.

Second Night

The second night was a bit more of an adventure. We had booked at the Best Western Les Beaux Arts in Compiègne, just north of Paris. We arrived at the hotel to find the doors firmly shut, though lights were on inside. Eventually I telephoned the number I had at the top of the email they had sent on Friday. A slightly bewildered but charming Frenchman answered. He seemed surprised, but gave us the code to get in via the side entrance. An envelope propped up on the counter contained the key and instructions on how to get into the garage (free on this occasion). There was one other envelope. It felt odd and ghostly to be in an almost completely empty hotel.

The restaurant was, of course, shut, as were the TWO restaurants across the river. But a short walk into the town centre brought a good choice and the evening was saved.

The next morning we came down to be greeted by the manageress who was serving a free breakfast express to us and to the one other guest. She showed me the email she had sent a couple of days before; it had clear instructions on it (below the formal booking acknowledgement) of what to do when we arrived. I hadn’t read that far. She was upset, not surprisingly. I was mortified, not surprisingly. The obvious point? READ YOUR EMAILS! And be prepared for the unexpected.

Here’s a guide to budget hotel chains in France.
And good value hotels in Antibes/Juan-les-Pins in the south of France if that’s where you’re headed.
Or perhaps a quick trip to the Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches? Try any of these excellent hotels and bed and breakfasts.

Summer 2020 in France: DFDS Ferry

We came back to the UK from Calais by DFDS ferry.

A word of advice on the general check-in at the port: allow a bit more time than usual. The UK Border Force are working at the passport booths, but only two of them were open and they are slow. There was a desultory search of the back of the trunk (presumably for hidden people). Was this a way of showing us what it will be like from January 1^st, 2021, we wondered? Probably, except the search might be more than desultory when we aren’t allowed to bring more than 2 litres of alcohol into the UK.

The ferry was very empty, and this was peak holiday time normally. It wasn’t just that DFDS were having to operate a reduced capacity due to social distancing. The Brits just aren’t travelling at the moment in any numbers to France.

We saw just three cars with UK number plates on our trip until we reached the autoroute running into Calais where we saw around a dozen.

On board the ferry there were bottles of sanitising gel everywhere but few people bothered with masks. There was a free meal thrown in; you just had to pay for any drink apart from water.
More about Ferries to France.

Summer 2020 in France: Overall Impressions

Allow more time to check in for ferries and Eurotunnel both in the UK and in France.

Many of the big attractions have re-opened or are about to re-open. But check on whether they require pre-booking before turning up.
Think of taking a picnic or check whether you can buy food at the attraction. Many of them how have specific picnic areas, but restaurants generally remain closed at attractions.

Take masks and be prepared to wear them!

Go for it; don’t be worried. It’s easy and the French are very welcoming.

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What we all miss most about France has become even more difficult to tolerate as France slowly opens up. France is so tantalisingly close and yet…Attractions, sites, museums, cafés and more all over the country are opening their doors this week. Close to the UK, the long, sandy beaches of north France beckon – perfect for social distancing. However for us in the UK, trips to France are still uncertain.

The very real possibility of getting there soon brings on a real yearning for the country.

It’s the little things

What I miss most about France are the little things.

Freshly baked croissants

I woke up this morning with an overwhelming desire for a fresh croissant. My house in the remote Auvergne is in a tiny hamlet with no shops. So when we’re there, we get up and bicycle the 5 kilometres along the gorges of the Allier river to the nearby small village which has one alimentation attached to the bakery. We buy fresh croissants, still warm from the oven, then go for a coffee in the local café eating some of them before cycling back, keeping some of those croissants for later.

When we first bought the house decades ago, the café was run by a man who had a steel plate in his head – a casualty of the war. He ran a multi-faceted business: café, petrol station and building materials shop. To us, he was the Pastis and cement man.

French Greetings

There’s the cheerful ‘Bonjour monsieur-dame’ when you go into any shop (apart from the odd exception, usually a cashier like the non-smiling grim-faced lady at Monoprix in Antibes). The greeting is a connection made, an acknowledgement that you’re somebody there with them. The greeting works wonders.

In the same vein, I do missing all that kissing. It can get a bit tedious in my region; sometimes hitting 5 kisses. I put it down to the slow pace of life – have they forgotten the first one by the time they get to the fifth? Or perhaps it’s just another way to pass the day. 

Visits to Unknown Places

I miss visiting small, unknown châteaux. It’s particularly relevant in my region where there aren’t very many. Take the Château de la Rochelambert. For years it quietly promoted the legend that Georges Sand stayed here with her lover, Chopin. It wasn’t quite like that; in fact the formidable writer spent just one afternoon here on June 4, 1859. And her lover? Nowhere to be seen.

The château clings to the hillside that rises above it, a massive, sturdy building of granite hugging the slope for comfort. It’s charming, and despite the debunking, there’s a bedroom dedicated to Georges Sand, with portraits and letters on display.

I love the small rooms and remember walking through the quiet château as dust motes quivered in the sunlight coming through the windows. Nobody there, just me and ghosts from the past – surely that was Georges Sand disappearing behind that door?

And the Château de la Rochelambert is now open. You just have to book in advance.

Restaurants, cafés and bars

I miss the busy waiters, immaculately dressed in black with long white aprons around their waists, even in the height of summer in the resorts along the south of France. They negotiate the tightly packed tables with consummate skill, trays balanced at shoulder height with glasses of beer, Pastis with jugs of water, citron pressé for those after a healthy drink, or a cure for a hangover.

I even miss the rude waiters of the past. Years ago, the French government ran a campaign to teach hitherto rude or indifferent waiters how to charm their customers. That year we went back to one of my favorites: Thoumieux which in those days was a wonderful, local and inexpensive brasserie, with the aforesaid grumpy waiters. They had changed; they were polite; they smiled! It was not the same experience at all.

Gardens – French formality vs English wildness?

I miss the slightly smug feeling of superiority when I’m visiting gardens in France. Looking at those military-style parterres with their regimented flowers and longing for the English approach of herbaceous borders spilling over onto brick paths, and rolling parkland dotted with mature trees.

What I miss most about France…less health and safety!

I remember visiting the gorgeous château at Ainy-le-Vieil, one of the best preserved fortresses from the 14^th century. I was on a press trip covering gardens in the Loire Valley.

It is still in the family of the original owner, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s Finance Minister, passing where needed through the female line. The redoubtable current owner, a Princess no less, wanted to show us the ramparts and the view. We dutifully climbed the stone spiral staircase to the top where the Princess was trying to open a door. She pushed hard and voilà! We were out on the ramparts that ran around the castle. They were about one metre wide with a battlemented wall to one side and the other? A sheer drop into the courtyard and no railing.

And just chilling out in my house in the Auvergne

I miss just sitting in my garden waiting for the train on the Train de Cevennes line going past way down in the gorges at exactly…11.27am. Yes, you can just see it.

There’s a whistle seemingly far away then the train comes out of the tunnel into the gorges, trundles along…how many carriages this time?…then disappears into another tunnel to continue on its journey.

Jam Making

And buying the apricots (testing them for sweetness first), and sugar for jam then spending hours making quantities of apricot jam to take home to London. It keeps a little bit of summer going for a very long time.

Looking out at dawn

Looking out of the window in the morning as the mist rises slowly in the valley.

And watching the sun set

Looking out of the window as the sun slowly sets on the small ruined chapel on a hillside far away.

Or just looking…

And I miss sitting on the rock just outside my house and looking over the valley, feeling on top of the world.

I miss France. What about you?

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Joan of Arc was canonised on May 16, 1920, 101 years ago.

She was born, in c. 1412, in Domrémy in Lorraine to a peasant family. She led the Valois French to victory against the combined English and the Burgundians at the besieged city of Orléans during the Hundred Years War. Her victory on May 8 1429 was stunning. The relief army’s success paved the way for Charles VII to be consecrated King in Reims.

But betrayed by the French and English allies she was handed over to the English on May 23, 1430. She was tried by a court that was thoroughly illegal, presided over by an English stooge. She was burnt at the stake on May 30 1431 in Rouen, Normandy, aged just 19.

In 1456, Pope Callixtus III ordered a retrial which declared the conviction null and void and confirmed her martyrdom.  

Joan of Arc was canonised 600 years later.

Saintly Martyr or Political Creature?

Throughout history, she has been used by both right and left politicians as the epitome of French patriotism. Napoleon declared her as a national symbol of France in 1803. Charles de Gaulle took the Cross of Lorraine which she carried on her coat-of-arms as the symbol of the French Resistance.

I knew all this, but in patches. Then I read an article by Ben Macintyre published in the Times on Saturday May 9. It pulls no punches about her, describing the Maid of Orléans as a ‘canny and ruthless politician, with a taste for luxury but little grasp of military strategy’. But, as he wrote, she was also ‘framed by the English’. Having written that ‘she was wrongly convicted by a corrupt tribunal manipulated by the English government’, he suggest the English government should admit this as a miscarriage of justice by the English.

It’s an interesting and off-the-wall suggestion that makes you realise how relevant history, even far distant history, is to us today. 

I was interested in the article as I’ve just written one on Orléans, a city which I love. I went there as a 16-year old on a school exchange.

But that’s for another time.

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Some fun facts about France to startle your friends with.

You probably do know that a Frenchman invented braille but did you know that the Napoleonic pig naming is a myth? It’s one of the three myths dispelled at the end of this article that takes in some odd fun facts about France.

This was a fun article to research and write so I hope you enjoy it.

So let’s start with inventions. It turns out that France produced a great number of them.

The modern bra

The modern bra was invented by Herminie Cadolle in 1889.

The enterprising woman modified the older corset (a one-piece) into two pieces, with the upper part held up by shoulder straps. Under the company name, the Cadolle Lingerie House, she exhibited at the Great Exposition in Paris in 1900. Five years later the upper half was sold separately.

Cadolle was immensely successful, holding up the breasts of the great and the good, royalty and actresses. Suzanne Lenglen wore her bras while smashing the opposition at tennis in the 1920s. A host of Coco Chanel clients were customers. Mata Hari, the Dutch exotic dancer who was shot as a spy by the Germans was another.

You can still buy a Cadolle creation online or at one of the two shops in Paris. It’s very sexy, and very expensive.  

The invention of Braille

Braille was developed by Louis Braille in 1824, aged 15.

After losing his sight aged 10, Louis Braille was sent to the Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Children) in Paris. A captain in Napoleon’s army on a visit to the school showed them his ‘night writing’ using raised dots and dashes. Used by soldiers for messaged at night without speaking, Louis Braille adapted it, using just 6 dots.

France officially adopted Braille as the official communications system for blind people in 1854, 2 years after Louis Braille’s death.

Adopting Camouflage

The French army pioneered the use of camouflage in world War I.

The French army was the first to form a dedicated camouflage unit in 1915, led by the artist Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola. They were then copied by other World War armies.

Wearing camouflage was first practised in the mid-18^th century by rifle units. In World War I, the French army employed artists, called camoufleurs, to make covers for military equipment. The word ‘camoufleur’ is Parisian slang for disguise.

Mayday mayday mayday

The international distress signal Mayday comes from the French m’aidez, or ‘help me’.

But it wasn’t invented by a Frenchman. One Frederick Stanley Mockford, a senior radio office at Croydon airport, was asked to think up a distress call that could be understood by all pilots and ground staff. As most of the traffic from Croydon airport went to Le Bourget, he came up with the idea of using the anglicised form of the French ‘help me’, becoming ‘Mayday’. It must be used three times to distinguish it clearly in noisy conditions.

Roundabouts (Rond-Points)

Over half the world’s traffic roundabouts are to be found in France.

I’ve found this impossible to check accurately, but I noticed their frantic adoption a few years ago. With a house in France, we witnessed the sudden explosion and steady growth. Every small village sprouted at least one roundabout. A couple of years ago it was claimed that there were more than 30,000 dotted around the country. Current estimates rise up to 50,000.

One thing I could establish: the Loire-Atlantique department has the highest number at 3,000 in the whole country. There are 1,100 in Nantes alone.

Apparently the latest exciting news is that peanut-shaped roundabouts are the future.

There are still no roundabouts in my local village.

The French King with the shortest reign…ever

Louis XIX had the shortest reign of any monarch in the world.

Louis was the eldest son of the French King, Charles X, the French Bourbon monarch. When his father abdicated during the July Revolution of 1830, Louis became King. He lasted 20 minutes before abdicating. His cousin, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, became King. But he suffered the same fate and was overthrown in 1848. Tumultuous times for France, and the rest of Europe.

Louis XIX and his wife travelled to Edinburgh in November 1830 and lived in Regent Terrace, near Holyrood Palace where his father Charles X was staying.

The French and escargots

The French are the greatest eaters of snails.

The French eat 25,000 tonnes of snails (escargots) a year – equivalent to 700 million individual snails. There’s even a national Escargot Day – May 24.

According to archaeologists, escargots go back to prehistoric times; they became a favorite dish during the Roman Empire. The oldest surviving cookbook, Apicius, a collection of Roman cookery recipes believed to have been collected in the 1^st century AD, has a recipe for snails.

One of the fun facts about France that I most enjoyed researching.

Adopting the Metric System

The French were the first to adopt the metric system.

The French didn’t invent the metric system but they were the first to officially adopt it in 1799 during the French Revolution.

It replaced the old impractical system which was based on the Carolingian model introduced by Charlemagne (800-814), which in turn was based on Roman measures. It’s estimated that in 1789 there were 700 to 800 different names for units of measurement in France. What is more, the units varied wildly. A lieue (league) was 3.286 kms (2.04 miles) in Beauce, north France, and 5.849 kms (3.63 miles) in Provence.

One of the most constant unit of measurement was Charlemagne’s pied du Roi (the king’s foot). Make what you will of this one.

Denim

Denim was first produced in the textile-making city of Nîmes.

The tough fabric was first produced in the late 17^th century by weavers trying to replicate the way of producing serge, a popular heavy duty fabric.

Take the story on to Levi Strauss, the Bavarian who emigrated to the USA in 1848. In 1850 he headed west out to San Francisco. The Californian gold rush was on and the enterprising young man began selling sturdy work trousers to the miners. He started making them with tent fabric, but really hit the big time when he adopted sergé de Nîmes (denim – voila!).

Walking on stilts

The French were the first to use stilts.

The French claim that stilts were first used by shepherds in the marshy Landes in western France to watch their flocks and move around quickly.  

Stilts have been traced back to ancient Greece through literature and Namur in Belgium recorded fights on stilts in 1411. But it’s likely that France saw the first mass use of them, as they claim.

The Auvergnats and Paris Restaurants

Who ran Paris restaurants after World War II?

After World War II the Auvergnats, who had earlier fled the poverty of the central France region, ran around 90 per cent of Paris cafés and restaurants.

I got his piece of information from the excellent book by Peter Graham, Mourjou, the Life and Food of an Auvergne Village. My house in the beautiful, remote Auvergne is in the Haute-Loire, the department directly east of the Cantal which is the area that the book is all about. But many of the experiences are exactly the same. If you like France, and French food, buy this book. That’s my excuse for this entry in my fun facts about France.

French the language of royalty in England

French was the language of royalty and the court from 1066 to the end of the 14^th century in England.

William the Conqueror and his nobles and army spoke a mixture of languages, with Old Norman being the most common. Introduced in 1066 with the French invasion, Old Norman was the mother tongue of every English king from William to Henry IV (1399-1413). In England this developed into a dialect called Anglo-Norman French.

the language on the royal coat of arms is still French. It appears in the motto of the British Monarch Dieu et mon droit (God and my right), and the Order of the Garter, Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shamed be he who thinks evil of it).

We see this on our passport covers, even the new ‘Blue’ ones.

Cauliflower exports – how Brittany Ferries started

Brittany Ferries was launched in 1973 by Alexis Gourvennec and fellow Breton farmers to export their cauliflowers and artichokes to the UK.

Britain was entering the Common Market in 1973 and the Breton farmers needed the best and quickest way to get their veggies over the Chanel. Hence the company, originally known as Armement Bretagne-Angleterre-Irelande, shortened to B.A.I. The first ship was named Kerisnel after a small Breton village known for its splendid artichokes. The company launched on January 1st with French, British and Breton flags flying and choirs singing carols.
More on getting to France from the UK

The Pigeon Army Division

The French Army is one of the most advanced in the world

France still breeds and maintains carrier pigeons. One of the soldiers in charge of some 200 of the birds is Maréchal des Logis Sylvain of the 8th Régiment de Transmissions at Mont Valérien in Hauts-de-Seine (where the memorial also has a museum of the soldier carrier pigeons). With admirable sang-froid he explained: “They are no longer used for military purposes but continue to be trained and kept fit, so if ever needed in a war situation, they could be used. With modern communications, this is highly unlikely and would only be if there was a total blackout.”

Who knows? In this uncertain world, the French Army might have the last laugh.

I discovered this courtesy of the excellent news outlet The Connexion

And Some Myths about France Dispelled

I think any article about the fun facts about France should dispel some of the myths out there. Here are three that I can disprove.

Naming a pig Napoleon is illegal in France

NO! Nobody has found any evidence for this. The most likely explanation for it arising comes from George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Find out more here.

Marie-Antoinette when told of the hungry poor said: “Let them eat cake”

NO! Marie-Antoinette, the Austrian Archduchess who married Louis XIV in May 1770 aged 14, became the most hated royal figure after the French Revolution. She was tried, found guilty and guillotined in October 1793 aged 37. The saying was invented and attributed to her in 1789 though it had been used by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Confessions written in 1765 when Marie-Antoinette was 9 years old.

Kilts were invented in France

NO! Of course all full-blooded Scots will rage at this myth, but how was it ever started? I found it in a Rough Guides list of French myths, which is surprising given the normal accuracy of Rough Guides.

One possible explanation comes from the ancient practice in Brittany and Normandy of kilt wearing. People from both regions came over to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. Both the Stewarts and the royal House of Stuart have Breton origins. Alan Rufus, also called Alan the Red, was a cousin and knight in William’s personal retinue.

But the kilt only seems to appear at the end of the 16^th century, starting out as the great kilt in SCOTLAND! This was a full length garment. The small or walking kilt that is common today developed in the late 17^th century. It’s really the bottom half of the great kilt.

I have really only touched the surface here. If you have more fun facts, please let me know.

More about France

Here are some more serious articles!

The new regions of France
Guide to French Departments
The 7 Main Mountain Ranges of France
The Longest Rivers of France

The post Fun Facts about France – and some Myths Dispelled appeared first on Mary Anne's France.

What were your first memories of France?

Mine were of lying in a bunk with my mother on a ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe. I was four years old and very sick; my two elder brothers were prancing around being terribly brave on the horribly bucking and rearing old ship.

It was not a good start to a summer family holiday to Mers-les-Bains on the north coast of France.  

My parents had booked a small hotel overlooking the beach. It was very old-fashioned with iron shutters at the bedroom windows, big heavy furniture and lumpy beds. We loved it.

I can remember hot days with a shrimping net. Going back to this part of France I realised that it must have been quite difficult to catch anything with a shrimping net. There are no rock pools, though the pebble beach might have yielded the odd catch. Perhaps I was just proud of having a shrimping net.

I remember the owners who went by the outlandish name of Monsieur and Madame Pompilliou (at least that’s what I remember; my brothers can’t remember at all). I don’t know if they had children of their own, but two days into our stay they offered to look after all three of us so my parents could go to Paris for the weekend. I was 4 and my brothers 8 and 12. Absolutely unheard of today, but then? The Pompillous were just being kind.

I remember my parents coming back with toys, particularly a small model of a Paris bus. It had an open back, a bell and was green (I would describe it as British racing green, but that would not be tactful, and perhaps not true either).

It was a little like this bus, but ignore the date!

I remember the breakfasts: hot chocolate in slightly cracked French bowls (much better than porridge), freshly baked bread which was crisp outside and warm inside and joy of joys…unsalted butter and sweet sticky apricot jam.

Childhood memories are fragmentary things that catch you out when you least expect it.

I had forgotten all about Mers-les-Bains until one year when we were returning from a holiday with my husband and small son in our house in the Auvergne. On our way back to the ferry I decided to revisit the past. It was fiercely stormy; the wind roared along and the waves crashed on the beach. It was all we could do to stand upright and we took bets on which of the beach cabins would be the first to fall over.

It was out of season so most of the small restaurants were closed. We walked along the front feeling discouraged but eventually found one that was open. We pulled open the door and staggered inside, the door crashing behind us. The windows were steamed up from the warmth; it was full of locals and smelt of fish.

We ordered mussels and chips and along came steaming bowls of the molluscs and double-cooked chips with sachets of mayonnaise.

My son looked rebellious; this was the first time he had encountered a mussel. He opened his mouth to refuse this disgusting looking pot of shellfish. “Ah, monsieur” the waiter smiled at him “Voici comment on fait”. He picked up an empty shell, using it to extract the mussel flesh from another shell, ate it and put the shell into the upturned lid. “Et voilà!”

Perhaps it was Les Mouettes along the Esplanade du Général Leclerc? Until I know otherwise I will keep getting my mussels and chips here.

My son has been a fan of mussels and chips ever since. I wonder what he will remember and treasure from holidays in France.

More about seaside resorts in northern France from this article. Take a short break in any of the wonderful resorts (think northern Riviera!) that stretch down the coast from the Opal Coast and Boulogne to near Dieppe.

Or stay in one of my favorite cities, Calais, which has an intertwined history with England and all kinds of attractions including…a dragon.

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