I always thought reason the French were do upset by Agincourt was that their aristocracy in the shape of their mounted knights were slaughtered by the English peasant archers.
Could well be.
The English victory at Agincourt was one of the most overwhelming, and unexpected, results of any medieval battle, but it wasn’t the first time the
French were comprehensively walloped by the English during the Hundred Years War.
The Battle of Sluys in 1340 was the first major battle of the Hundred Years War and was a dramatic naval victory for Edward III.
Six years later the French were particularly miffed after the Battle of Crecy in 1346 when Edward III defeated a vastly superior French army. At
Crecy, with the defeated French having fled the field, the English looked through the wounded French to see who was worth taking prisoner for
ransom. Those knights who were too severely wounded to be easily carried off the field were dispatched with misericordias (mercy-givers). These were long daggers which were inserted through the unprotected underarms and into the heart, or through visor slits and into the brain. This was against the chivalric codes of warfare, since peasants were killing knights - rather than in face to face in combat with their peers - it just wasn’t on.
The French suffered again ten years later when they were defeated by Edward III’s son Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) at
the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. During this battle Prince Edward’s army captured the French King John, along with his young son Philip together with many French nobles. The capture of King John altered the balance of power in the war, and gave the English a vastly improved negotiating position.
In medieval times (and later) slaughter of the wounded during and after a battle was normal practice regardless of which side of the battle you were
on. “Atrocities” as we acknowledge them today didn’t exist; it was normal and accepted medieval military behaviour. The incidents that were
commented upon by the chroniclers of these events was when an ordinary peasant soldier killed a knight or a lord as he lay wounded or dying,
such a thing was against all the rules of chivalry.
Gallic hauteur and pride is so universally accepted as a national characteristic that its display goes almost without any notice, even by the French themselves and over the years, France like most European nations committed “atrocities”. What about these for example:
1. The putting down of the heretics during the Albigensian crusade against the Cathars in 1209? (Particularly at Beziers, Minerve and
Carcassonne, at Lavaour 400 Cathars were burned to death, “the biggest human bonfire in history” as a contemporary chronicler recorded.
2. Philip IV of France arresting the French Knights Templar’s, charging them with numerous heresies, torturing them to extract false
confessions of blasphemy. These confessions, despite having been obtained under duress, caused dozens of Templar’s to be burned at the stake in Paris.
3. Massacre of Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572.
4. Congo (French) in the late 1800’s as reported by Pierre Brazza.
5. Casablanca in 1907.
6. Algeria in the 1950’s and 60’s.
Mind you we have to live with some not very nice historical “atrocities” of our own such as the battle of Culloden Moor (16 April 1746), the battle where the Duke of Cumberland earned his nickname “Butcher Cumberland” after the defeat of the Jacobite army at Culloden Moor when he ordered the death of any wounded Jacobite found on the battlefield. The redcoats clubbed or bayoneted surviving Jacobites to death, often mutilating their bodies before moving onto the next wounded combatant. Any that managed to flee from Culloden Moor to neighbouring villages were hunted down by the redcoats and slaughtered along with those harbouring the fugitives. Innocent women and children were murdered; homes, barns, outbuildings and agricultural implements were destroyed.
France-UK rivalry goes back centuries. But perhaps things are changing, witness President Sarkozy's comments during his visit earlier this year when he acknowledged that the UK had twice come to the aid of France, and the French would not forget that.
As far as Franco-British customs go, personally I much prefer an unhurried long lunch with a bottle of Sauvignon blanc to a pie and chips at the pub, so there is one French custom that I like!
PS. Apologies for the sloppy pagination above. It looked good before I submitted the post, but came out as shown.