1000 Years of Annoying the French
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 ...
From the Norman (not French) Conquest, to XXX, it is a light-hearted - but impeccably researched - account of all out great-fallings out.
In short, the French are quite right to suspect that the last 1,000 years have been one long British campaign to infuriate them. And it's not over yet...
Stephen Clarke lives in Paris, where he divides his time between writing and not writing.
His Merde novels have been bestsellers all over the world, including France. His non-fiction books include Talk to the Snail, an insider's guide to understanding the French; How the French Won Waterloo (or Think They Did), an amused look at France's continuing obsession with Napoleon; Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France, a biography of Edward VII; and 1000 Years of Annoying the French, which was a number one bestseller in Britain.
Research for The French Revolution and What Went Wrong took him deep into French archives in search of the actual words, thoughts and deeds of the revolutionaries and royalists of 1789. He has now re-emerged to ask modern Parisians why they have forgotten some of the true democratic heroes of the period, and opted to idolize certain maniacs.
Follow Stephen on @SClarkeWriter and www.stephenclarkewriter.com