Page 69 Two Frenchmen sleep off the effects of excessive wine-tasting, c.1950; Getty Images.
Page 73 Catherine Deneuve on the set of the film La Chamade, 1968; Getty Images.
Page 77 A model in a dress designed by Jacques Fath, c.1950; © TopFoto.co.uk.
Page 81 Caricature of Louis Philippe, King of the French, as Marianne, by Gustave Doré, 1871; Getty Images.
Page 89 Front cover of Le Pot au Feu, 15 July 1896; © TopFoto.co.uk.
Page 98 La Liberté guidant le people (‘Liberty Leading the People’), 1830, by Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863); Shutterstock.
Page 100 ‘To live happily, live in bed’, anonymous photograph for a postcard, c.1905; The Art Archive/Kharbine-Tapabor/Collection IM.
Page 102 Poster for the film Emmanuelle2, 1975; Trinacra/Orphee/The Kobal Collection.
Page 106 Rolla, by Henri Gervex (1852–1929). Jacques Rolla, a young bourgeois, who has fallen into a life of idleness and debauchery, prepares to commit suicide by poison; The Art Archive/Musée des Beaux Arts Bordeaux/JFB.
Page 113 An irate husband, accompanied by the police, catches his wife and her lover in the act… Female adultery was always considered more seriously than male, as this 1905 French postcard entitled Le Flagrant Délit shows; The Art Archive/Kharbine-Tapabor.
Page 120 A French family at breakfast, 1939; Roger-Viollet/Topfoto.
Page 129 ‘The worst pupils in the class’: cover photograph for the magazine Guérir (‘Healing’), 15 March 1934. The French equivalent of the Dunce’s Cap as a school punishment was the bonnet d’âne, or donkey’s ears, and was widely used in French schools even into the twentieth century. It was often used as a punishment for talking in regional languages at school; The Art Archive/Kharbine-Tapabor/Coll. Jonas.
Page 132 A new model of urinal photographed by Charles Marville (1816–78) in the chaussée de la Muette, Paris (16th arrondissement); © Charles Marville/Musée Carnavalet/Roger-Viollet/TopFoto.
Page 136 A public urinal kiosk, illustration by Hondt for the catalogue of Tassart, Balas, Barbas et Cie, 1898; The Art Archive/Kharbine-Tapabor/Coll. Jonas.
Page 144 French engraving a toilet, bathroom and bathtub, c.1870; The Art Archive/Private Collection/CCI.
Page 146 A baby in the bath; postcard from the author’s collection.
Page 149 ‘Femme à sa toilette’, by Armand Jagaud, 1920s; Roger-Viollet/Topfoto.
Page 154 Louis de Funès in Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez, 1965; Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images.
Page 163 The French custom of maraîchinage, or prolonged kissing, traditionally under an umbrella, blurred the distinction between the social and the passionate kiss; postcard from the author’s collection.
Page 170 The French actress and dancer Leslie Caron, London, 1966; Getty Images.
Page 178 Republican guards lining up at the rear entrance to the Palais de Chaillot, 1948; Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Page 182 La beauté est dans la rue (‘Beauty is in the Street’), poster from the student revolt in Paris, May 1968; Archives Charmet/Bridgeman Art Library.
Page 194 Title page of the 1929 edition of Le Bottin Mondain, Éditions Didot-Bottin; public domain.
Page 195 Photo by Nadar of the novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850); Wikimedia Commons.
Page 197 Vintage French metal sign: Désolé nous sommes fermés (‘Sorry, We’re Closed’); Shutterstock.
Page 203 Illustration of a Frankish knight, created by Montfaucon, published in Magasin Pittoresque, Paris, 1842; Shutterstock.
Page 206 A French helmet of Second World War vintage; Shutterstock.
Page 210 The French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, c.1960; Getty Images
Page 212 First page of the Sixth Edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 1835; Wikimedia Commons.
Page 215 Guardians of the purity of the French tongue: learned members of the Académie française in earnest discussion of such crucial matters as the use of the circumflex accent; Roger-Viollet/Topfoto.
Page 224 Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, late 1960s/early 1970s; Keystone Archives/HIP/TopFoto.
Page 231 The original release poster for À bout de souffle, 1960; SNC/The Kobal Collection.
Page 244 Jean-Paul Sartre scribbling in a Left Bank café, 1940s; Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.
Page 254 A dog owner carries her three Pekinese to a dog show in Paris, c.1935; IMAGNO/Austrian Archives (S)/TopFoto.
Page 258 Parisian schoolchildren leave the city for holidays in the mountains or by the sea, 1933; IMAGNO/Austrian Archives (S)/TopFoto
Page 273 Holidaymakers in Deauville (Calvados), 1983; Jean-Pierre Couderc/ Roger-Viollet/TopFoto.
Page 278 So tiny, it fitted into a matchbox… Louis Réard had to use a topless nightclub dancer to model the first bikini, considered too risqué by regular models, 1946; Getty Images.
Page 283 New French housing estate; Wikimedia Commons.
Page 287 Saint-Cirq Lapopie in the Lot; Shutterstock.
Page 291 Elsie de Wolfe, from The House in Good Taste. The Century Company 1914.
Page 294 Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, 1944; Roger-Viollet/Getty Images
Page 299 The novelist Émile Zola (1840–1902); Wikimedia Commons.
Page 305 Map of the department of Lot, Midi-Pyrénées, from Dictionary of Words and Things, Larive and Fleury, 1895; Shutterstock.
Page 311 The garden at the château of Villandry in the Loire, widely regarded as one of the greatest of the French Renaissance gardens; Shutterstock.
Page 320 The futuristic cityscape of La Défense; Wikimedia Commons.
All other images included in the book are from Shutterstock.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Sex, smoking, fashion,
Film, wine, women,
Painters, poets and Paris...
We all cling to our romantic notions of the French, but what are the truths behind the clichés?
In this entertaining, beautifully illustrated tour of French history, society and culture, Piu Marie Eatwell explores 45 of our favourite myths and misconceptions about the Gallic nation
REVIEWS
‘Piu Marie Eatwell debunks some of our most treasured fantasies about the French and tackles the stereotypes head on.’
Daily Mail, Book of The Week
‘An entertaining tour from adultery to the Paris Metro.’
The Times
‘Intriguing, cheeky and entertaining.’
Spectator
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PIU MARIE EATWELL has lived in France for almost a decade, in various arrondissements of Paris and its outlying suburbs. She has worked as a television producer and international lawyer in both London and Paris. She is married to a lawyer working in Paris, and has three children growing up in the régime français.
A LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER
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Dedicated to great storytelling
First published in the UK in 2013 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Piu Marie Eatwell, 2013
The moral right of Piu Marie Eatwell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publis
her of this book.
975312468
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN (HB) 9781781854440
ISBN (E) 9781781854433
Print book designed by Judith Ash, Delineate
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They Eat Horses, Don't They? Page 35
