I love France too. I even lived there for a year, once. But, as an Englishman, I am obliged also to take the piss out of the French. It's a duty in which I take no particular pleasure. I don't dislike it either. But...it's a duty.

And a ripe area is French protectionism which, being English, I am obliged simultaneously to admire and despise. When I was living in Paris, the city declared that its infants would now have to take classes in food-tasting. So pernicious was the influence of fast food, and so revered the cultural status of French food, everything had to be done to ensure the delicate French palate survived. You see? This has to be admired and laughed at at the same time.

I know next to nothing of French pronunciation in the middle ages and my assertion was mostly prejudice. However, I do remember wading my way through a wonderfully thorough and old-fashioned French grammar book called "Le Bon Usage", and the examples in the book suggested that the earlier the usage, the bon-ner it was. From this I induced that the French spoke the same in the twelfth century as they do now. Unscientific, but forgivable. All is fair in love and war.