France had come to bury Wales not to praise them but when the dust had settled after this memorable match Pierre Villepreux, his country's guru of running rugby, had to take his chapeau off to Pays de Galles.
France's backs' coach was lost in admiration: "The French players were not expecting Neil Jenkins to be running the ball from his own 22. Wales could have scored three more tries in the first 20 minutes. This Welsh team, well, it has the best collective style of all the teams in the Five Nations," he said.
From feather dusters to strutting cockerels in a fortnight and earning their corn in France's own backyard where they had not won for 24 years. Just what had the Welsh players put on their croissants on Saturday morning? There was much talk of "not getting carried away" and "keeping our feet on the ground" for their match against England next month. A fat chance. Wales's supporters at least will be floating up Wembley Way.
If a first half which begat 46 points was breathtaking, the second half had more drama than the collective works of William Shakespeare. Thomas Castaignede has had the role of France's rescuer of lost causes in the recent history of the competition. His late drop-goal sank England three years ago, his late penalty left Ireland looking blue last month. But when he drew his stoppage-time penalty attempt across the posts rather than between them, France's dream of an unprecedented third successive Grand Slam became just that and Wales's Parisian nightmare was over.
There have been some great displays in the Five Nations during the last decade but this was the greatest contest. When France secured their Grand Slam against Scotland two years ago and when England won in Dublin in 1997 the victors played rugby to match the southern hemisphere superpowers. But here both teams played off-the-cuff stuff that made Super 12 look conservative.
Wales's Kiwi coach Graham Henry harked back to the Super 12 when asked if this was his most satisfying game. "A Natal against Auckland game was the only game that compared to this, but that pales into insignificance now." Henry had spoken in the week of adopting a bold approach after the defeats by Scotland and Ireland. Wales were more than true to his words. Their imported forwards, Peter Rogers and the outstanding flanker Brett Sinkinson, added their muscle to build a platform and tries by Colin Charvis, Daffyd James and Craig Quinnell as well as 19 points from the boot of Jenkins exorcised a few more ghosts from Wales's golden age.
And this against a team whose full back, Emile Ntamack, scored a bitter-sweet hat-trick of tries and finished on the losing side.
A team who inflicted a record 51-0 hammering of Wales 11 months ago, a day when Castaignede ran rings around Jenkins, one of only four Welsh survivors this weekend.
It was left to the ever pragmatic Henry to bring everyone back to earth. "This gives us a foundation. We'll have a party and not a team meeting. But we've a long way to go. Our fitness levels are not high enough. We ran out of a bit of steam in the second half and we weren't quite so clever when we didn't have the ball.
"But we expressed ourselves. We took the opposition on and that's what the game's all about. We are never going to be big enough to play a forward-dominated game. We have to keep these big packs moving around the park." England have been warned.
Mark Taylor, the Wales centre, was also realistic. "It was a mixture of delirium and delight in the dressing room. When Castaignede was lining up that last kick I thought `Oh no, he can't do this to us'. At the end of the day luck was on our side. It's so often gone against us in the past." And if Castaignede's conversion of Ntamack's second try had struck the inside rather than the outside of an upright Wales might have been staring at a whitewash and not celebrating a red-letter day. Jenkins, who in all the frenzy passed the 700 points mark in Tests despite missing five kicks, also struck a post. They were misses as good as miles.
For all the excellence of their backs, Henry knows he has defensive problems to sort out in the next month. Matthew Robinson had a pretty traumatic time before being replaced by Gareth Thomas in the third quarter. His misjudgement handed Ntamack that second try when the Swansea wing knocked the ball into the Frenchman's hands, his missed tackle allowed Ntamack to complete his hat-trick after the break.
Thomas looks a safer bet to face Italy in Treviso on Saturday week and England three weeks later. France, meanwhile, will be without their centre Richard Dourthe, who dislocated his shoulder after five minutes, for the rest of the championship.
L'Equipe on Saturday morning had headlined one of its stories "Rouge de Confusion". France's sports paper was talking about Wales. It might have been talking about a whole crazy afternoon of 67 points and many missed ones. Phew.
Scorers: France: Tries: Ntamack 3, Castaignede. Conversions: Castaignede 2. Penalties: Castaignede. 3. Wales: Tries: Charvis, James, C Quinnell. Conversions: Jenkins 2. Penalties: Jenkins 5.
France: Ntamack (Toulouse); Bernat- Salles (Biarritz), Dourthe (Stade Francais), Comba, Lombard (both Stade Francais); Castaignede (Castres), Carbonneau (Brive); Califano (Toulouse), Ibanez (Perpignan, capt), Tournaire (Toulouse), Brouzet (Begles-Bordeaux), Pelous (Toulouse), Benetton (Agen) Raynaud (Narbonne), Lievremont (Perpignan). Replacements: Aucagne (Stade Francais) for Dourthe (5 mins); Marconnet (Stade Francais) for Tournaire (half-time); Castel (Beziers) for Benetton (61 mins).
Wales: Howarth (Sale); Robinson (Swansea), Taylor, Gibbs (both Swansea), James; N Jenkins (both Pontypridd), Howley (Cardiff, capt); Rogers (London Irish), G Jenkins (Swansea), Evans (Swansea), C Quinnell (Richmond), Wyatt (Llanelli), Charvis (Swansea), Sinkinson (Neath), S Quinnell (Llanelli). Replacements: Thomas (Cardiff) for Robinson (52 mins); Lewis (Cardiff) for Rogers (62 mins); Llewellyn (Ebbw Vale) for Howley (63 mins).
Referee: J Fleming (Scotland).
