Re: OT: For information only !

Philippe Caquant wrote:

>
>
>
>>(BTW, why is the cliche for the English
>>"perfidious"?  From
>>the Hundred Years War till 1914, France and England
>>were just
>>straight-up enemies.  Where does the element of
>>betrayal come in?)
>>
>>
>
>Well, I searched on Google and found 1,870 pages (in
>French) mentioning the expression "perfide Albion",
>but couldn't really find any convincing origin. It
>just seems this expression has always existed... which
>is probably not the case. England is the perfidious
>Albion just as Japan is the country of the Rising Sun,
>there can't be any discussion about that :-) . Of
>course, one could mention the 100 Years War, Jeanne
>d'Arc, Canada, India, Napoleon, Fachoda, Mers-el-Kebir
>and the mad cow, but who did use this expression for
>the first time, I don't know. I suspect it was at the
>time of French Revolution, anyway, probably XVIIIth
>century.
>
>
>
In all of which, incidentally, we were in the right ;-)