France...20 England...15: There are days - and this was one such - when England are not so much reminiscent of a world-class rugby team as the man in the old Hamlet commercial who just cannot get his golf ball out of the bunker.
Clive Woodward's team have now seen four successive grand slam opportunities slip through their aghast fingers and the most overused phrase on Saturday night was deja-bloody-vu.
Jonny Wilkinson, forced off late on with a calf strain, looked numb with disappointment as the clock ticked down. Martin Johnson stood equally still at the final whistle, hands on hips, trying to get his head around the self-evident truth that his team had just been outplayed.
Never mind the punch that threatened the England captain's starting place, this was a deeply painful blow to the solar plexus. The early-evening Eurostar out of Paris was quieter than a university library; so familiar has the descent from hero to zero become that England fans now have season tickets for it.
And so, after 80 revelatory minutes in Paris, the baton passes to the French, who host Ireland and travel to Edinburgh in their remaining fixtures. "We are the only team who can win a grand slam," boasted Gloucester's hooker Olivier Azam. "If we prepare as well as we did today, I think we have a great chance."
Were England playing an individual sport the verb "to choke" would apply; in team games the tangled web of collective responsibility means it is not that simple. Johnson's presence was supposed to soothe English anxieties but, instead, the bad day at the Stade will now take its place alongside its gloomy predecessors, the Wembley walkabout, the Murrayfield mugging and the Dublin dead-end. "I don't know how many teams we have to lose to before we learn our lessons," said Johnson, as aware as anyone that England had once again paid a heavy price for underestimating the opposition.
There was no great tactical mystery to England's defeat. For reasons best known to themselves, they cast most of the management's pre-match instructions into the cool damp air, singularly failing to establish the territorial advantage or forward momentum required.
It barely seemed possible this could be the same starting line-up who cut Ireland to green ribbons a fortnight ago, but, then again, France proved a very different defensive proposition with Serge Betsen, the Cameroon-born flanker wearing an army camouflage scrum-cap, playing like a one-man commando unit.
If the dominant image of England's win in Paris two years ago was Wilkinson's massive hit on Emile Ntamack, the England outhalf will have flashbacks of only one face when he recalls this game.
France had clearly done their video homework, ensuring Betsen and his colleague Olivier Magne were everywhere the Irish had failed to be. When even the French prop Pieter de Villiers chased and caught the England wing Ben Cohen from behind, it simply reflected a first half in which England might easily have leaked 25 points.
The first hairline cracks were visible even before Fabien Galthie threw the English defence with a clever dummy and the hugely impressive Imanol Harinordoquy sent the pacy Gerald Merceron over.
Inside the first quarter, the French scored again, Harinordoquy looping around Tony Marsh to finish in the left corner. Without the faintest of tap-tackles from Mike Tindall, De Villiers would have scored a third.
With the link between Kyran Bracken and Joe Worsley at the back of the scrum beginning to fray, England were grateful when Jason Robinson danced brilliantly past Nicolas Brusque to score on the stroke of half-time and reward Johnson's decision to kick for the corner.
By this time, Henry Paul had been summoned from the bench for his first cap to replace Tindall but it was not until the sixth minute of second-half injury-time that Cohen touched down Austin Healey's cross-kick to give the scoreline a less haunted look to the English.
There was enough thunderous commitment in between to give the record 79,502 crowd excellent value, but England's dismay was summed up by Healey's post-match admission that he had stood in the showers with Will Greenwood openly debating whether England would ever win a grand slam.
Greenwood, who played as well as any English player, was refreshingly honest - "I'm sure you've already had it wheeled out that we'll bounce back better" - but accepts that England too often underperform away from Fortress Twickenham. "It's winning on the road that makes you a quality side."
SCORERS: France - Tries: Merceron, Harinordoquy. Cons: Merceron 2. Pens: Merceron 2. England - Tries: Robinson, Cohen. Con: Wilkinson. Pen: Wilkinson.
FRANCE: Brusque (Biarritz); Rougerie (Montferrand), Traille (Pau), Marsh (Montferrand), Bory (Montferrand); Merceron (Montferrand), Galthie (Stade Francais, capt; Mignoni (Beziers, 67); Crenca (Agen; Milloud, Bourgoin, 61), Ibanez (Castres; Azam, (Gloucester, 75), De Villiers (Stade Francais), Auradou (Stade Francais; Pelous, Toulouse, 61), Brouzet (Northampton), Betsen (Biarritz), Magne (Montferrand), Harinordoquy (Pau; Martin, Stade Francais, 79).
ENGLAND: Robinson (Sale); Healey (Leicester), Tindall (Bath; Paul, Gloucester, 39), Greenwood (Harlequins), Cohen (Northampton); Wilkinson (Newcastle; Luger, Harlequins, 74), Bracken (Saracens); Rowntree (Leicester; Leonard, Harlequins, 74), Thompson (Northampton; West, Leicester, 74), Vickery (Gloucester), Johnson (Leicester, capt), Kay (Leicester; Grewcock, Bath, 74), Hill (Saracens), Back (Leicester), Worsley (Wasps; Corry, Leicester, 60).
Referee: A Watson (South Africa).
