They didn't necessarily ape their French contemporaries, either.
Wellington's contemporaries, both French and British, criticized his handling of the battle.
To Poncelet's French contemporaries, it was something new.
He was, in fact, for the best part of half a century the closest link between English artists and their French contemporaries.
Yeats, too, was influenced by his French contemporaries but consciously focused on an identifiably Irish content.
His music is highly colorful and one can hear the influence of his French contemporaries.
They also found inspiration in the paintings of their French contemporaries of the Barbizon school.
Sigmund Freud's French contemporaries initially neglected the significance of psychoanalysis.
Fondly remembered by her French contemporaries, Mary died of breast cancer in 1718.
The French contemporaries of the macaronis were the incroyables.