The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh hosted a Gala Dinner in honour of the French President Jacques Chirac and Madame Chirac at Windsor Castle on this day in 2004, 20 years ago, to celebrate the centenary of the Entente Cordiale.
British Royal Visits to France
The Queen hosted the Banquet for the French President and Madame Chirac in St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle, ahead of a performance of Les Misérables in the Waterloo Chamber. Earlier that year, the Queen had made her own State Visit to France.
The royal family did everything it could to make President Chirac feel at home and to celebrate the centenary of the entente cordiale at Windsor Castle last night. They laid on perfect British weather as the rain lashed down, reducing the tricolours and union flags dangling from the lampposts to a mess.
The president experienced another characteristic feature of modern British life, the burst water main rush hour traffic jam in the Cromwell Road, which made the French motorcade half an hour late. No chance of French outriders and flashing lights to speed the convoy through Hammersmith.
It was the second time the president had been late – he had also kept the Duke of Edinburgh waiting at the Foreign Office earlier. At Windsor, the Queen did not venture outside into the wet to meet him, but the duke was there, wagging his finger roguishly at the delay.
Then, with the government’s help, they offered Mr Chirac a traditional British demonstration, with up to 2,000 hunt protesters blowing horns and shouting their customary cries of welcome for the prime minister.
In the castle’s St George’s Hall, the Queen gave the president a typical English dinner and had it translated for him. The 140 luminaries around the long table included ballet dancer Sylvie Guillem, next to the Prince of Wales, designer Nicole Farhi, next to Tony Blair, the playwright David Hare, Louis Bleriot, descendant of the aviation pioneer, and Arsène Wenger, English soccer’s most famous Frenchman.
And to round the evening off, an extract from the musical Les Misérables, with its heart-warming depiction of an impoverished 19th-century Parisian proletariat. To do so, Her Majesty sat Mr Chirac and his entourage down in the castle’s Waterloo Room – renamed the music room just for the night – with its cheerful echoes of French defeat in 1815, and placed him where a portrait of the Duke of Wellington could keep an eye on him.
Her Majesty may not have known that Mr Chirac loathes musical performances and is left cold by musicals. Or that Les Mis bombed when it opened in Paris. Or, perhaps, maybe she does.
If there is an Agincourt bedroom at Windsor, with Mr Chirac’s luck, it must surely have been allocated to him.
The Queen wore the Godman Emerald Necklace.
Earlier this year, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, on behalf of King Charles III, attended a parade to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace.
