For many centuries northern France was the epicentre of ‘the West’, with Paris pre-eminent, challenged only by London from the late 18th century and the United States in the 20th. France’s central role was acknowledged throughout the Middle Ages, so that as Barbara Tuchman wrote in A Distant Mirror, at the start of the 14th century the country was ‘supreme… Her superiority in chivalry, learning, and Christian devotion was taken for granted, and as traditional champion of the Church, her monarch was accorded the formula of “Most Christian King.”’ French was the language of the ruling elite way beyond the Hexagon, from the first western colonies of the Crusader Kingdoms to the rulers of a heavily Frenchified England.