The most English place in all of France
The naming of Francis Bayrou as fourth French prime minister of 2024 should focus attention on his home city of Pau. He’s been mayor there for the last 10 years. But that’s not going to happen. Everyone is far too busy predicting when Mr Bayrou will be censured by excitable MPs of the left, the right and the border-line bonkers. No-one is thinking of Pau.
Thus it remains for us to rectify the matter. And as quickly as possible, given that the present life expectancy of French governments isn’t much longer than the Advent calendar. It’s perfectly possible that Mr Bayrou will have fallen before I’ve finished this piece. So we’ll crack on, for Pau is a grand place – with an unexpected seam of Britishness as thick as John Bull’s forearm running right through.
The city (pop: 77,000) sits 15 miles short of the Pyrenees, so that one might appreciate the mountains – they rise mid-distance with majesty – without all the faff of mountaineering. This is the region of the Béarnais – rustic, beret-toting folk quite as distinct as the next-door Basques but without the irritating folk traditions. Mr Bayrou is of Béarnais stock: his dad was a farmer. He speaks the Béarnais language fluently, though I doubt that adds much to his vote tally.
Alongside Pau’s Béarnais elements, though, one is forever bumping into Britishness. Zap the snow-capped peaks and, at moments, you could be in Berkshire. Well, the nicer bits of Berkshire. When last there, I went from an Anglican church, via vast villas and gardens of English sumptuousness to Pau Golf Club, the oldest in continental Europe. The honour boards bear the names of trophy winners and club captains: English-speakers almost to a man. From foundation in 1856, French locals scarcely got a look in for a century.
They weren’t much more numerous at the Pau Hunt, also founded by our ancestors. It still rides out, now with Frenchmen chasing a drag rather than Englishman in pursuit of the uneatable. Horses are big-time round here. Mr Bayrou himself breeds thoroughbreds, when not being a centrist politician or writing history books. As well as the hunt, English upper-class men required a race-course and training ground. These remain among the best, and most extensive, in France. I watched dozens of streamlined steeds surging from the morning mist, ahead of winter’s major Pau meetings (this year, from now to February 18, 2025). The spectacle could as easily have been from 1824 or 1924.
In few places, thus, is a British past so positively palpable in a French present. St Andrew’s Anglican church still has Holy Communion at 1045am on Sundays (while St George faces Joan of Arc on the altar triptych). And the Boulevard-des-Pyrénées – conceived as a Palois version of Nice’s Promenade des Anglais – runs more than a mile along the edge of Pau’s plateau, looking down to the river and away to the Pyrenean summits. Here is the grandest legacy of the British era. Alphonse de Lamartine said that the boulevard afforded “the world’s finest view over land as Naples offers the finest sea-views”.
All this stems from the time when, from around 1820 and for a hundred years, Pau was known as “la ville anglaise”. As a winter resort, initially for British consumptives (who were legion), Pau was as renowned as Nice or Biarritz. The rush came when, in the 1840s, Scottish doctor Alex Taylor wrote a best-selling door-stopper claiming Pau’s climate was ideal for chest complaints. Granted, he wrote, it did rain in Pau, but this was different from British rain for it didn’t “uncurl ladies’ hair”. It will startle no-one to learn that Dr Taylor had a private medical practice in town. Bingo! Top-drawer Britons started rolling in, unimpeded by any damned nonsense about integration.
In this remote French country town of 16,000, they recreated a noble British culture, complete with the hunting and gaming, polo and tennis, music salons and bandstands, Anglicanism, British banks, doctors and dentists, and villas with bow windows and abundant gardens. Natives from Pau and the surrounding Béarn region were required only to supply domestic and other services.
Pau Golf Club (PGC) certainly had its moments. Liverpool-born Joe Lloyd – club professional, the first such in France – travelled to Chicago to win the third US Open in 1897, the only man ever to do so with an eagle on the final hole of the final round.
At the same time, the social season blossomed with parties, grand dinners and posh balls in great halls. As a local journalist wrote (bear in mind, this bloke was French): “Convinced, correctly, of their superiority in all domains – especially sociability – (the British) taught the indigenous locals... the rules of savoir-faire.” This included how ladies should be dressed and how to handle a tea-pot.
And then Americans slipped in, not least Wilbur Wright. He set up the world’s first pilots’ school in Pau – attracted by calm weather suitable for magnificent men in their flying machines. Thus was established an aero-tradition which shortly embraced Norman Prince, the driving force behind the Lafayette Squadron of volunteer US flyers. They fought with the French before the US entered the Great War.
By the 1920s, though, the Palois locals were reasserting themselves. They had, and have, much to reassert: mountain traditions (berets, sheep, nearby ski-ing), a strong streak of independence (from when Pau was capital of Navarre) and a CV including not one but two monarchies.
The vast château dominating the river was the 1553 birthplace of Henry IV, the first Bourbon king and a flirtatious fellow who changed religion almost as often he changed mistresses. The castle boasts the turtle-shell which, allegedly, served as his cradle. It’s a very big turtle-shell.
Across town, French history bumps into Swedish in a galleried house set back from Rue Tran. It was home to Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, a Napoleonic commander and, later, King of Sweden. The Swedes lacked a royal heir, so voted Bernadotte into the job... primarily because, as a military man and diplomat, he had the necessary international clout. That he was French apparently didn’t matter. He took the throne in 1818, and his family still reign in Stockholm, still visit Pau. The little museum tells the tale well though, since Covid, has been closed for renewal.
Back in the centre, the Place Royale looks as though shipped in from London. It’s flanked by monumental town houses with the correct dimensions for champagne fountains, large orchestras and very wide dresses. Mary Todd-Lincoln, widow of assassinated Abraham, had rooms in the square’s Hotel de la Paix. After stints in a US asylum because unhinged by grief, she’d sought refuge in Pau where she lived as a recluse. She wasn’t even tempted to the official reception for Ulysses Grant when he and his wife passed through in 1878, though it was held in the Hotel de France opposite.
By now, you’ll need to eat. Head for the new market hall, where the Maison Abadie charcuterie stand would bring vegans back from the brink. Overall, the market is food lust rendered three-dimensional. For £12.40, you may pick up a Pass Gourmand from the tourist office and have goes at 10 such stands in the market, plus other food shops elsewhere. Do it. It’s lunch. You’ll thank me.
For further sweetness, roam to Rue Joffre where, among very many other sweetmeats, the rather posh Maison Miot sells les coucougnettes de Henri IV. This translates as “Henry IV’s knackers”. Sorry about that, but the ladies selling them are smart and smiling and don’t blush at all. Jolly good the sweets are, too: almonds covered in chocolate and then pink almond paste. The Reine Margot’s Nipples are also available in chocolate form.
From there, you might stroll the old town to the château and onto the 60-acre park beyond. Pau occasionally appears more park than town. Down below the Boulevard des Pyrénées, in another park near the station, is a crop of 104 yellow totems, each one commemorating a Tour de France, and the relevant year’s winner. They’re about head height to Chris Froome. Sir Bradley’s there, too, of course, and looking better than of late.
And so the British connections pile up. Writer/barrister Dornford Yates was based near Pau. The young Winston Churchill rode with the Pau hunt and dozens of locals helped Second World Wr refugees and escapers over the Pyrenees. Whether any of this will influence Mr Bayrou’s attitude to Britain remains to be seen. Whether he’ll last long enough for us to find out also remains to be seen.
Getting there
Fly Ryanair from Stansted to Tarbes-Lourdes (or Biarritz), then bus it.
Staying there
The Hotel Bristol is a smashing old town-house rendered 21st-century by new owners in 2021 (hotelbristol-pau.com, room-only doubles from £88).
Eating there
Le Berry is the buzzy Béarnais bistro where you’ll find pretty much everyone in Pau (leberry-pau.com; omelettes from £7, veal escalope £18). More contemporary, and good value-for-money, is the Michelin-recognised L’Interprète (linterprete-pau.fr; three course lunch £25, four-course dinner £48).
This article was first published in December 2021 and has been revised and updated.
