1,000 years of annoying the French

From the bestselling author of A Year in the Merde, an entertaining and wildly funny book that could make the current entente with our French neighbours decidedly un-cordiale.Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? Non! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? Non! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. Was the guillotine a French invention? Non! It was invented in Yorkshire. Ten centuries' worth of French historical 'facts' bite the dust as Stephen Clarke looks at what has really been going on since 1066 ... "Stephen Clarke takes a penetrating look into those murky depths, guiding us through all the times when Britain and France have been at war - or at least glowering at each other across what we Brits provocatively call the English Channel. Along the way he explodes a few myths that French historians have been trying to pass off as 'la vérité', as he proves that the French did not invent the baguette, or the croissant, or even the guillotine, and would have taken the bubbles out of bubbly if the Brits hadn't created a fashion for fizzy champagne. Starting with the Norman (not French) Conquest and going right up to the supposedly more peaceful present, when a state visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy becomes a series of hilarious historical insults, it is a light-hearted - but impeccably researched - account of all our great fallings-out. In short, the French are quite right to suspect that the last thousand years have been one long British campaign to infuriate them. And it's not over yet ..."--Front cover insert Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? Was the guillotine a French invention? This title addresses these French historical 'facts' and looks at what has really been going on since 1066.