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Considering I just arrived in Paris last Friday, and will be studying here for the next semester, I thought it would be fun to compile some of my favorite things about French history:

– In 1560, while walking down a street in France, a man was mugged.  While the thief tried to flee the gentleman pulled out his sword (remember, 16th Century) and cut off the bastard’s ear.  The gentleman was then subsequently sued by the local executioner for the right to own the ear because technically it would have been his job to cut it off had the thief then been arrested and tried.

– Napoleon wore a black handkerchief around his neck for every battle except for one, where his black handkerchief was accidentally thrown in the wash and he was forced to wear a white silk cravat.  That battle was Waterloo.

– People familiar with the Kirsten Dunst 2006 feel good hit of the year, “Marie Antoinette,” of course know that Marie and Louis’s marriage was not consummated in a time frame pleasing to Maria Therese.  In fact, it took over 7 years before the deed was done.  There are many theories as to why this took so long; for a long time it was thought that Louis XVI had a condition wherein his foreskin was too tight, making sex painful, but was given an operation after 7 years that would have fixed this.  However, recent examinations of his very meticulously taken hunting diaries show no breaks that would have been necessary for the healing process, so who knows.

– Shortly before his retirement (the real one.  For those unfamiliar, retirement for de Gaulle was like a Cher farewell tour.  Never actually the last one) him and his wife were visiting with English friends.  In response to the question as to what she looked forward to the most after her husband’s retirement, de Gaulle’s wife said “a penis.”  After some awkward silence, de Gaulle corrected his wife “My dear, I think the English don’t pronounce the word quite like that.  It’s ‘appiness.”