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The French have not experienced much success in their home Tour in recent history - their last overall win was back in 1985 with Bernard Hinault - so you can imagine their glee when four of their children led for much of Sunday's stage in Brittany.

This was the scenario when Christophe Moreau and David Le Lay - both riding for the cattle-prodding market leaders Agritubel - caught the peloton napping and doubled the shoulder-shrugging tendancies of the day's principal breakaway in one fell swoop.

Joining Thomas Voeckler and Sylvain Chavanel - still bickering like spoilt children over a couple of polka dot jersey points - the French twosome became a foursome which was decapitated only when, with just kilometres to spare, Chavanel put two fingers up at his fellow compatriots and went for it alone.

Oh to have been within earshot of the Four Musketeers (pictured here) as they went on their two-wheeled jolly through the Breton countryside.

Lucky then that Blazin' Saddles is the owner of a rogue radio which picks up the frequency of everything that goes on in the tour. Here, printed for the very first time, are unofficial (and entirely fabricated) extracts from the day's Gallic action.

Scene One, just after the first climb of the day

Tommy: Puta*n! Chav, why did you do that, hein? You knew I vanted ze points for the mountains jerzay!

Chav: Tais-toi and ride you little spotty garcon. This could be my chance to finally do something grand on Le Tour...

Tommy: D'accord. But only if you let me win all ze climbs so that I can take ze spotty jerzay home to maman.

Scene two, feeding zone

Le Chav: Zut alors, I am so 'ungry I could even eat a 'orse.

Tommy: Be careful, mon ami. Don't fall off and 'urt your 'and like my friend Herve La Salle Duc, who is already drinking ze red wine back in Bordeaux after 'is 'orrible crash yesterday.

Le Chav: This duck fat pate is tres bon, don't you fink?

Tommy: Puta*n! You 'ave pate? My team, they just give me ze Vache Qui Rit cheese... is dizgusting!

Scene three, Mur-de-Bretagne

Le Chav: Where are you Tommy? It is le soumet very soon. You no want ze points?

Tommy: No, no... you go... How to say... I am out of ze puff.

Le Chav: I 'ink we should vait for more countrymen to 'elp us to ze finish. As four we can carry more bidons, and us French are very good water-carriers. Look at Didier Deschamps. Sportif.

Tommy: I tell you what, Sylvain - we need someones who know the area vell and an old, washed-up rider who will make even me look like ze balls of ze dog.

Scene four, Moreau and Le Lay join the two Frenchmen

Tommy: Eh, Chav, it looks like your dream 'as come true - 'ere comes ze cavalry, hein!

Chav (to Moreau): Salut, mon vieux, it is wery pleasant to see you 'ere today.

Moreau: Listen wery carefully, I vill say zis only once. It is many years since our patrie 'as won anything. This must change. La France needs la gloire. We must revolt against ze rest of ze peloton and jump clear like frogs.

Tommy: But 'ow do we do that, vielle branche?

Moreau: With our secret veapon - monsieur Le Lay!

Le Lay: Bonjour, camarades. Nobody know me. Not even the commentators. But I know this region like my pocket. I am born in Saint Brieuc so I used to drive my tractor over these roads. Leave it to me, I will show you, how to say, a short cutting to ze terminus.

Scene five, the peloton is bearing down

Tommy: Chav, Chav, slow down. I am too tired. I think ve should give up. My grand-father says best way forward is backwards. He did this when fighting against ze Germans in Alsace.

Moreau: Je suis completement d'accord. My legs they 'urt a little after too much exertion. I 'ear on race radio that Soler has problem. That means he might be paf paf for the mountains. This is my chance to be like Richard Virenque - if I could win ze points on ze small cols like you Tommy, maybe I will be the mountain king. Le succes, enfin.

Le Lay: I too 'ave 'ad enough. Riding le Tour is too 'ard. I go back now. Au revoir.

Chav: You are all a disgrace to la France - just like our terrible football team and ze boss with ze big black bushy eyebrows. I go alone. This year I am superman. Like Bernard Hinault says, I train 'ard for first time, and it makes me winner. Stage two of le Tour is mine. Sylvain Chavanel is ze greatest. I am invoncible - (the sudden roar of the peloton zipping past ruins any radio transcription from this point.)

FIN

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Lunchtime is officially the most dangerous time of this year's Tour. On Saturday's opening stage the hapless Tour debutant Herve Duclos-Lassalle plummeted out of the race after a musette got caught up in his spokes, sending him crashing to a broken wrist and a trip to hospital.

Surely lightning could not strike twice? Well it did - and this time Andy Schleck must be feeling mighty guilty. For the not so gentil homme of Luxembourg failed to get a good grasp of his lunch pack, and in swinging it round managed to knock France's Nicolas Jalabert - brother of the illustrious Laurent - clean off his bike.

Admittedly, Agritubel's Jalabert must have been taken off guard, his mind clearly in a whirl following the unlikely news that two of his French team-mates had actually attacked out in front.

But - unless racing against Linford Christie in a nudist colony - being knocked off your bike by someone else's packed lunch is not really something you can prepare for. Sure, Frank looked back with an apologetic gaze, but he wasn't the one who had to eat lunch while nursing a knee dripping in blood.

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The tour heads to Nantes on Monday - a city which has won more prizes this millennium than every French rider put together. Voted "best place to live in France" in 2003 by one French magazine, Nantes went one better in 2004 when it picked up Time magazine's "most livable city in all of Europe" award.

And what will be music to the ears of messrs Hushovd, McEwen, Kirchen and Zabel, French weekly l'Express in 2003 voted Nantes to be the "greenest city in France".

Which leads Blazin' Saddles to his daily prediction of the next stage winner. Sunday's long-shot punt on aged Viking Magnus Backstedt was frivolous to say the least, the big Swede moseying home more than two minutes off the pace back in 132nd position.

But now Blazin' Saddles is going to get serious. Choosing Le Lay and Backsted for the opening two stages was purely an exercise of light-hearted wishful thinking.

Monday is one for the pure sprinters, the boulevard in Nantes being wide, straight and pancake flat. Being the history buff that he is, Blazin' Saddles remembers that - prior to abolition in the 18th century - Nantes was the slave trade capital of France.

The omens thus surely point to a win for Quick Step's Gert Steegmans. For years the Belgian bullet has been subject to abject bondage - first at the hands of Robbie McEwen at Lotto and then under the cracking whip of compatriot Tom Boonen.

But owing to the Boon King failing to keep his nose clean during the off-season, Steegmans, to put it in rather base vernacular, is no longer Boonen's Belgian b*tch. These fetters gone, expect him to go and Gert victory in Nantes.

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Plat du jour

The peloton leaves Brittany and the seaside, heading due south to the Loire region - renowned for its river. Blazin' Saddles is thus going to suggest some freshwater fish today - perhaps some walleye, shad or elver. For those with a richer palate, how about frogs' legs, or eels from the region's many marshes?

As for a drink - well, yesterday Blazin' Saddles jumped the gun somewhat by punting for Muscadet, but do not fear; Nantes' vineyards are the largest in France, the region boasting 750 wine producers and some 20 merchants.

As an alternative to Muscadet, try Gros Plant, a dry and lively white wine, pleasant to drink young.

Lanterne Rouge

You may have not heard of Nantes but it is in fact the centre of absolutely everything. No kidding - Nantes is the official epicentre of the planet's land hemisphere.

Talking point

Will France ever have another Tour champion? What is it that makes the Gallic talent of today so tame in comparison to the Fignons, the Hinaults and the, erm, Durands of yesteryear?

Watch live coverage of every stage on your PC via the Eurosport player - click on the link under the picture to subscribe.

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Felix Lowe / Eurosport