ABSTRACT
This chapter examines processes and manifestations of ‘cultural transfer’ from France to Britain between 1660 and 1830; many British perceptions of France and channels of communication active in the nineteenth century were established in this period. The British were concurrently enthusiastic about and hostile toward things French throughout the long eighteenth century. The chapter gives illustrative examples of British engagement with French culture and an overarching sense of how perceptions were created and sustained. French codes of conduct were imported, as were fashions, architectural styles, literature and art, influencing elite taste and culture throughout the eighteenth century. Concern that imported goods, cultures and codes of behaviour undermined British masculinity bolstered suspicions that Francophilia emasculated the wealthy, resulting in a corrupt and indolent lifestyle.
