When rambling, came across fine French character (8)
I believe the answer is:
ambience
'french character' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both states of affairs as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'when rambling came across fine' is the wordplay.
'when rambling' indicates an anagram.
'across' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'fine' becomes 'bien' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'came' is an anagram of 'amce'.
'amce' enclosing 'bien' is 'AMBIENCE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ambience that I've seen before include "Surroundings or atmosphere" , "Suitable surroundings for manic bee" , "Atmosphere of manic bee" , "Character and atmosphere of a place" , "Aura (of a place)" .)