The Parisian and the cuckolded husband, meanwhile, are said to be still living together in domestic disharmony. Apparently, they have taken a floor of the house each and now eat at different times. God knows where they get their bread.

What is also interesting here, though, is the French attitude to infidelity. Nobody has condemned the baker as a cheat and a cad. Everybody thinks he is a jolly good bloke. When I asked another villager if he wasn’t shocked by the goings-on at the bakery, he looked amazed.

“Shocked?” he said. “This sort of thing has been going on since before time began.”

I remember a friend of mine telling me the story of a woman who lived outside Toulouse whose husband had an affair with the local postmistress. Instead of turfing out her husband, she asked a friend if she could borrow her house.

“What for?” said the friend.

“I need to seduce my husband,” was the wronged wife’s response.

She got dressed up in some sexy underwear, invited her husband round and performed a striptease routine. I can’t imagine an Englishwoman reacting in the same way. She might borrow a friend’s house to murder him in, so as not to get any blood on her own carpets, but certainly not to show him her latest matching underwear.

De Gaulle once said that it is impossible to rule a country in which there are 265 types of cheese. Maybe it is the sheer variety of everything: bread, wine, strange vowel sounds and so on, that makes fidelity more difficult for the French.

Strangely enough, they seem more able to resist culinary delights than temptations of the flesh. I remember an extremely chic and slim Parisian once telling me about her little trysts, always carried out with maximum discretion in smart hotels around town.

“What else can’t you resist?” I asked her. “Croissants, for example?” She looked horrified. “I haven’t had a croissant in over 12 years,” she told me.

I suspect the baker’s wife has gone off them as well.

More France Please, We’re British by Helena Frith Powell is available at The Sunday Times Books First price of £9.49, with free delivery in the UK (RRP £9.99) on 0870 165 8585, or visit www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy

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