On the walk to Arpege, the Michelin three-star restaurant situated on Paris’s Left Bank, I pass a striking sculpture of Charles de Gaulle parading outside the Grand Palais. A quotation from the general is emblazoned on the base below: “There is a pact 20 centuries old between the grandeur of France and the liberty of the world.”

I am still musing on de Gaulle’s vision of French universalism as I enter the surprisingly stark but elegant restaurant. Few people are better qualified to interpret France than my guest, Theodore Zeldin, the British historian, philosopher and business lecturer, who has spent his life marinating in French history and culture.