Did You Know…The Parlez-vous francais Edition

We all seem tantalized by anything French, starting with Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy who was admonished as First Lady for preferring French couture.

  The designer, Oleg Cassini forced upon her, one can be assured, wasn’t her idea.

  Hey, she was part French on her father’s side, it was in her blood to wear scarves and pearls.

  Even the iconic pink suit she wore on that fateful day in Dallas, though American made, was a Chanel copy, her taste never wavering.

  She also spoke fluent French. It came in handy meeting President Charles de Gualle at a state dinner in Versailles who said, she knew more about French history than any French woman he had ever met. 

In 1831, Victor Hugo wrote The Hunchback of Notre-Dame to save the great cathedral that was falling apart.

He wrote his iconic 1,000-page novel successfully convincing Paris to save Notre Dame still standing 861 years later. As we speak the grande dame is being restored from top to bottom. I’m sure Victor along with Quasimodo, that little bellringer, would be pleased.

 French leave means, leaving work without permission.

 A flâneur is an idle stroller…to walk around in an aimless way, cool and aloof. An observer of urban society.

   French pastries are notoriously rich filled with cream and custard.

   A Pâtisserie is the pastry shop they’re sold in. 

   French postcards were, by definition, erotic displaying couples in flagrant sexual poses, doing better sales I’d imagine than the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame. 

    The French were considered so promiscuous that syphilis was called the French disease. Explain that to your mother after bringing home a French boyfriend.

Condoms are called French letters because in those pre-foil days they came in paper envelopes. The French taking offense flipped their title renaming them, English letters.

   I so understand. In Connecticut where I’m from, you’d simply ask…you got one? The C word airbrushed out like a stray hair.

   Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon are still considered the sexiest French actors of all time. 

French bread of course is what we know as a baguette.

   In Australia, never to be outdone, renamed it the husband-beater. 

 Wonder if one needs a permit. Here you’d be doing 8- 10 for such a crime.

  Well, unless of course you were on trial with 88 felony charges against you. What’s one more charge when you think about it.

  Ouf, as they say on the Right Bank

 SB