Pourquoi était-il licite au roi de France de contracter alliance avec le Turc ? Comment la bataille de Vergt en Périgord gagnée par Monluc empêcha que la France devienne huguenote au début des guerres de religion ? Selon quel cérémonial Montaigne fut-il admis à baiser la mule du pape ? Quel défi singulier Henri de Navarre, héritier du trône de France, lança depuis Bergerac au duc de Guise, chef des ligueurs ? De quelle façon un vaniteux gentilhomme catholique se laissa brocarder par un subtil hobereau protestant au temps de l’édit de Nantes ? Vous apprendrez tout cela et plus encore en lisant ce livre consacré à un siècle turbulent et fascinant

The author was posted to the French Embassy in Dublin as Head of the Economic Department in September 2000. He thus arrived in Ireland at the very time when the economic boom in that country reached its climax. Forecasters had anticipated an 8 per cent growth rate for the Millennium year: the actual figure was to be 11.5 per cent, the highest ever recorded. Alas! The turn of the tide had come. The bursting of the Internet bubble, the ensuing downturn in the US, causing American companies to close overseas branches, the Brussels warning over an expansionary Irish budget, the setting-up of a siege economy to hold in check foot-and-mouth disease, and the final blow, September 11, resulted in a 2001 growth rate reduced by half. The fabulous era of the Celtic Tiger was over. The author gives a personal account of that period, relating his first steps and encounters in the Green Isle, his coming to terms with the problems of modern Dublin life, his own experience of the events of « annus miserabilis ». The end result is an eminently readable book about how the Isle of the Blessed (and, accessorily, the world) entered this century.