Mr. Tallboy corrected the misprints, damned their eyes for using the wrong name-block, made it clear to them that they had set the headlines in the wrong fount, cut the proof to pieces, pasted it up again in the correct size, and returned it.

Earlier this year he said multiculturalism had “failed”, that immigrants needed to “melt” into French society, and that “we do not want ostentatious prayers in the street in France.”

After his return he bitterly complained of being called a Nestorian by the Monophysite Philoxenus, declaring that he knew nothing of Nestorius.

The League of Nations, meanwhile, suffered a credibility gap as the United States never joined the organisation that its President argued was essential for preserving the hard-won peace.