Bassoon : m. Bundle of wood menu, branches.
Wine, bottle from behind the bundles: the best wine, aged in the cellar (behind the bundles).
By extension: From behind the bundles: which presents a remarkable quality
(speaking of one thing).
Twisted bundle: insult.
Large sum.
The expression "To feel the fagot": to be suspected of heresy (heretics were formerly condemned to the stake). By extension, inspire mistrust, give an impression of danger.
To be disbelievers, to have too free ideas in matters of religion - More generally, applies to any person, opinion or work generating a scandal or inspiring mistrust, because likely to be condemnable. absence of guillotine or electric chair, it was necessary to find a way, extremely painful if possible, to kill the one who was condemned to death. Large fires were made of logs surrounded by bundles of small wood skilfully piled up so as to start the fire and spread it to the logs placed around the post where, tied up, the condemned man was to live his last moments.
To be disbelievers, to have too free ideas in matters of religion - More generally, applies to any person, opinion or work generating a scandal or inspiring mistrust, because likely to be condemnable. absence of guillotine or electric chair, it was necessary to find a way, extremely painful if possible, to kill the one who was condemned to death. Large fires were made of logs surrounded by bundles of small wood skilfully piled up so as to start the fire and spread it to the logs placed around the post where, tied up, the condemned man was to live his last moments.
As a result, people treated in this way shortly before passing from life to death inevitably smelled of burnt bundle. It is from this practice, very applied to heretics, that our metaphor was born in the XNUMXth century, first used for people considered to be disbelievers before extending to anything considered subversive or capable of leading to justice. .
The expression “From behind the fagots”: Preciously preserved - Excellent, rare, exclusive, surprising. Of exceptional quality.
Originally, in the XNUMXth century, this expression applied to wine, that which was brought up from the cellar where it had been carefully stored, hidden behind bundles of wood stored for the winter.
This quality wine being kept for special occasions, the expression has ended up generalizing, in a figurative sense, to anything of very high quality, which is excellent, rare or even surprising.
Some winegrowers still use bundles of vine shoots today which are placed in front of the flow valves, inside the fermentation vats for red wines.
These bundles allow the juice to flow while retaining grape seeds and other debris that could clog the pumps.
In this case, it is literally wine from behind the bundles that we get.