Bill, I know how you like to bad word the OED, too, so here is a long and tedious list of citations therefrom for..

longueur - [Fr. = length.]
A lengthy or tedious passage of writing. Also in extended use, of music, etc.
[The form longeur in quots. 1959 and 1970 is erron.]
1791 H. Walpole Let. 26 May (1905) XIV. 437 Boswell's book is gossiping;.. but there are woful longueurs, both about his hero and himself. 1821 Byron Juan iii. xcvii, I know that what our neighbours call ‘longueurs’, (We've not so good a word, but have the thing,).. Form not the true temptation which allures The reader. 1866 Nation (N.Y.) 16 Aug. 127/2 In what other writer than George Eliot could we forgive so rusty a plot, and such langueurs [sic] of exposition? 1887 Dowden Life Shelley I. v. 183 Admirable moralists, no doubt, were Fenelon and Marmontel, but there are longueurs in their writings. 1892 I. Zangwill Childr. Ghetto I. 5 The terrible longueurs induced by the meaningless ministerial repetition of prayers already said by the congregation. 1950 ‘G. Orwell’ Shooting Elephant 41 A kind of pattern.. survives the complications and the longueurs [in King Lear]. 1952 ‘M. Cost’ Hour Awaits 251 This sense of impending pause in herself—this longueur of spirit. 1958 Times 22 Dec. 5/5 Should the recitalist be an imperfect executant, the audience must listen for much too long a period, with only one interval to alleviate the longueurs. 1959 Guardian 2 Nov. 7/1 One was aware of extensive stretches in which nothing historically worth while seemed to be going on—longeurs which the Director of History.. would not have tolerated in his scenario. 1963 Times Lit. Suppl. 18 Jan. 40/3 Some of his own early experiences were clearly embedded: the longueurs of the middle-class Sunday, the deadly frustrations of office routine. 1970 Times 29 May 7/2 Despite the show's contradictions and longeurs, it does at least attempt something audacious and original. 1971 Guardian 18 Feb. 9/8 There are so many longueurs in most of the originals that one can hardly jib at Miss Wilson's frequent condensations. 1974 Times 6 Mar. 14/8 A perfect committee man, he would remain wholly silent—and even asleep—during the longueurs not unknown in university meetings.