Since Paris is just about my favourite city (San Francisco and Edinburgh almost equal it), I can't afford to believe they really despise me!

Sorry, dxb. Just teasing with tasteless stereotypes. And your love of Edinburgh seems quite in tune for a Francophile; it always strikes me as a very French-looking city somehow.

On a complete tangent (is this allowed?): I was amazed to learn recently that the English court spoke French almost exclusively (and never bothered to learn the language of the populace) for a few hundred years. Maybe that's why the great unwashed took such pleasure in mangling the French phrases.