The French famously shortened the amount of headroom their monarchs needed, so it might come as a surprise to hear they only too gladly made space for the Queen's hats on her cross-channel visit to Paris this week.

President Hollande's official vehicle, a Citroen DS5, was too small to contain Her Majesty's headgear, it was revealed, so a vintage Renault Vel Satis was recommissioned from storage to transport the Queen down the Champs Elysees. The spectacle of it, tricked out with Union jacks and accompanied by 146 horsemen of the French Republican Guard, proved almost too much for some spectators and news channels. Footage of the Queen walking down the Eurostar platform as she arrived in the city was replayed six times in 15 minutes.

'It's so emotional that the thought almost occurred to me that it would be nice to have a Queen in France,' the Times reports Eric Meyer, editor of Geo magazine, as saying.

There was fascination too with Her Majesty's outfit changes, one of which was effected aboard the Eurostar, another inside the British embassy. It's a certain volte face from the spirit of 1789, when public opprobrium for the French monarchy reached its height over the excesses of their lifestyle.

But what is it about the Queen and her style that softens even the sturdiest of sans culottes? Well, first off, it's the fact she looks like everybody's grandma. And then there's the days-of-yore aspect of her colour palette - cornflower blue, primrose yellow, baby pink - that, to our digitally enhanced-accustomed eyes, is the visual equivalent of tripping up and landing in a huge pile of cotton wool.

And the insistence on wearing hats even though nobody else is wearing one. It's that insistence that means we accept them – a fairweather hat-wearer could never command the sort of gravitas that the Queen does. Has anyone even seen the very top of her head? It's a secret she shares with only St. Edward's crown.

But there's a further sartorial echo that might speak to the French: the fact that so much of Her Majesty's wardrobe is inflected by the golden age of couture in that country. The skirt suits, the bouclé, the mid-lengths hems, the court shoes. Not that the Queen would ever be seen decked out in Chanel or Balenciaga – she's far too patriotic to ever do that – but that her clothiers of choice, one Norman Hartnell in particular during her youth, have always worked in a vein that was prescribed by what was going on in Paris in the 1950s. And the Queen hasn't really changed up her look since then.

So it's no wonder unpopular president Hollande was keen to trail in Her Majesty's awe-inspiring wake. Her stylish head-of-stateliness is an example to us all. It's about as far as you can get from all that 'let them eat cake' malarkey.