The aftermath of Brexit (together with the several recent atrocities across the channel) has recently brought the subject of Anglo-French relations sharply to mind. What the French thought of our ancestors and what our ancestors thought of the French is a subject with a long, complicated and fascinating history.

There is no finer window onto the matter than the writings of French critic and historian Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893) who, in a series of visits to these shores between 1862 and 1870, assiduously recorded his impressions of all matters British. His comments-at-a-distance give us a clear and fascinating view of our ancestors in a way that no other source quite achieves. As a foreigner, Taine was attuned to everything that made the British different from his own people, and his pertinent remarks on many aspects of everyday life make compelling reading for a family historian particularly during these times of uncertainty in Europe.

Despite the death of Prince Albert in 1861, Britain was riding the crest of the wave during the period of Taine’s visits. She had acquired extraordinary and enviable levels of domestic peace and wealth without any of the bloody upheaval experienced by the French during the Revolution of 1789 and subsequently. Britain boasted a democracy that was increasingly representative of its people, yet it also maintained a popular monarchy, a deeply stratified class system and a huge overseas Empire. How this had been so successfully achieved was a matter of great interest to all Britain’s European neighbours. Taine’s writings puzzled over the minute detail of life on our island, sometimes harshly critical, sometimes humorous but more often than not with great respect and reverence.

Weather
Taine put most of the differences between Britain and France down to the disparities in climate. The “six or eight degrees of latitude” that separated the temperature in the two countries was, in his opinion, the cause of much “bodily misery and spiritual depression”, yet it also created in Britain an environment which fostered a serious temperament and hard work.

In Scotland, he found that both the weather and the temperament of the people were even gloomier. Rain and grey skies, said Taine, put paid to the joie de vivre that characterised the Mediterranean countries, or, in his own words, “the melancholy and severity of nature in this country cuts out at the very roots any possibility of a voluptuous conception of life”.

Homes
Taine concluded that it was as a result of the poor weather that the most important feature of our ancestors’ lives was their indoor domestic existence: their home and their hearth: “The ideal, under these skies, is a dry, stoutly roofed, well-heated house; evenings tête à tête with a faithful wife, who must be a good house-wife and neatly dressed. The rosy cheeks of well-washed children in clean linen. The sight of a good, clear fire, an abundance of furniture, utensils, ornaments useful or otherwise agreeable, well set out, well-polished, and whose presence reminds a man that he is protected against rough weather and worry, provided with everything his body and mind may need.”

Taine contrasted all this very favourably with the warmer outdoor life of continental France where a man, by implication, might not be able to keep such exact control of his wife and children.

The British male
Wet weather and indoor comforts created a breed of men physically very different from their French counterparts. According to Taine, British men had “an air of solidity and resolution: a good machine, firmly set, well-built, well maintained, indefatigable and regular&hellip” They were “A real paterfamilias&hellip The face&hellip cold, still, correct, rather heavy and rather dull.” He described one very prominent type of “robust man, stolidly built, a handsome colossus, sometimes as much as six feet tall and broad in proportion” and asked incredulously, “What yards of cloth must be needed to contain such figures?”

Large, healthy and steadfast the English might be indeed, but their mental powers, it seemed to Taine, were somewhat limited. He considered them practical, sensible and less emotional than the philosophical French, but saw these characteristics as strengths rather than weaknesses. Taine found the Scots, on the other hand, more akin to the French in their mental capacity, “the race is lively and more mentally active here than in England”, he wrote of the people of Inverness, and he went on to enthuse that in the Highlands: “there are books to be seen even in the smallest cottages; the Bible first of all, a few travel books, medical dictionaries, manuals on fishing, treatises on agriculture, eight to twenty volumes as a rule… the common people […] were obviously better educated than our own villagers in France.”

The British female
Taine’ s prime observation about our female ancestors was that they were far more physically active than their French counterparts and (perhaps surprisingly because of the weather) spent more time out of doors. “On horseback especially in full gallop,“ he wrote, “they are veritable Amazons not only by reason of their skill and firm seats in the saddle, but by reason of their figures and their healthiness.” But there was something altogether unattractive to Taine about most British women, “in two thirds of cases, their feet shod in heavy boots are excessively manly; and, as for their long, out-jutting teeth, one cannot get used to them. Are they a cause or an effect of their carnivorous diet?”

And the natural masculinity of British women was not helped, according to Taine, by their appalling attire, “their over-ornamented and ill-contrived dress completes the effect of clashing incongruities. One sees purple or poppy-red silks, grass-green dresses decorated with flowers, azure blue scarves, gold and other jewellery, all of it strapped like a harness on to gigantic harridans reminiscent of superannuated heavy cavalry horses&hellip” Moreover the Frenchman firmly believed that whatever degree of attractiveness some British women had in their youth, it all too soon declined mainly due to the large numbers of children they produced, “the fair complexion is quickly and easily spoiled; the noses of many young women easily turn red ; and they bear too any children, which deforms them. You marry a blonde Angel, slender and confiding: ten years later you may find your companion for a lifetime a housekeeper, a wet-nurse, a broody hen.”

Food and drink
While generally impressed by the quality of life in British cities, Taine was wholly disappointed with our ancestors’ cuisine. “It is devoid of savour,“ he complained. “Huge helpings of greasy meat and vegetables without sauce; one is amply and wholesomely fed, but one can take no pleasure in eating.” He also noted that the British seemed to eat larger portions and drink far more alcohol than their French equivalents, “These people need stimulants&hellip An English workman is an engine whose furnace needs constant stoking with meat and spirits to keep the boiler going.” When looking for a cause for the British problem with alcohol, Taine came back to the weather, suggesting that drink was the obvious antidote to the miseries of the perpetual drizzle.

Religion
Like many of his contemporaries, Taine found the pomp and ceremony of the Catholic Church in France quite distasteful. The simplicity of British Protestantism was far more to his liking. In Aberdeen (staying in a Temperance Hotel) he attended a Sunday service in a Scottish Presbyterian chapel and was pleased to find, “no pictures, no statues and no instrumental music. The church is simply an assembly room, provided with a gallery and rows of benches, very convenient for a public meeting… The sermon was well spoken, soberly and sensibly, without oratory…”

The weather, the food and the appearance of the women aside, Taine actually held life in late 19th century Britain in high esteem, praising the emphasis on home and family, the recourse by politicians to rational debate rather than warfare to resolve conflict, the sound use of capital to improve public services, the noticeable fidelity of women, and the investment of parents in their children. Taine revered our British ancestors – those of the middle classes at least – as worthy leaders of the world, role models whom he wished his countrymen might emulate.

Quotations are from Notes on England by Hippolyte Taine, translated and with an introduction by Edward Hyams, London, Thames and Hudson, 1957 [Translated from the French Notes Sur L’Angleterre 1860-1870]