I enjoyed this puzzle very much, with a good mix of clues, and a couple of answers that used words that were new to me. I thought that I had posted this at lunchtime. Neil has just alerted me that something had gone wrong - so apologies ….

Across

9 A POLO GUES (ts) An apologue is a short story with a moral.
10 RASTA – “a star” with the end ‘r’ moved to the front. Haile Selassie 1 was an Emperor, and was God incarnate to followers of Rasta.
11 ORACLES Coracles are small circular welsh boats, originally made up of a wooden frame covered with animal skin, and propelled by paddle.
12 RAM PAGE. Aries is the sign of the Ram, and Buttons was a page in Cinderella.
14 WATCH ED POT is the one that never boils. According to the saying. Ed Balls is the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. Pot is a drug, so I am told.
15 UNCLE AN, the warning cry shouted by lepers, and a relative ‘with an’.
17 CAL I BAN The state being CALifornia, one being I, and embargo being ban. In The Tempest, Caliban is the deformed monster who is the slave of Prospero.
19 PIE D A TE RRE is Pierre around a date, and is also a small flat or apartment to a Frenchman
23 ROOMERS are tenants and sound like rumours.
24 N A CAR AT. I didn’t know Nacarat was an orange red colour, but I do now.
26 ENIAC is Caine backwards, as in the mutiny, and is the acronym for Electronic Numeral Integrator and Computer, which was built in the 1940s. Not many people know that.
27 GETTING ON

Down

1 LABOUR SUPPORTER
4 PUR(e) SLAIN which spelt like that, or as Purslane, is a pot herb.
5 ESCROC anagram of a score and also a French term for a swindler. Not a word I knew before.
6 CROMWELL was the head of the Commonwealth, and I then worked back. There is a River Rom, and that followed by well, for good, and preceded by C, the head letter of commonwealth gives one Cromwell, or have I made it unnecessarily complicated?
7 E S CARP – carp meaning to complain or beef, and escarp being a slope.
8 HAVE IT IN WRITING – I got the answer but spent time trying to work out why, until I spotted ‘it’ in scrawl (sit, crawl). I think there was a clue last week which referred to something intent, which made me laugh. This did too.
16 EVA NESCE, Eva being the girl, and the rest an anagram of scene.
17 COR O NETS –subalters are cornets, and with a nothing in the middle become coronets. As Tennyson said “Kind hearts are more than coronets”.
18 BEVERAGE sounds like Beveridge, who was Master of University College, and was the author of two important reports.
20 ER OT IC refers to Eric, or Little by Little, a story about a good boys descent into moral turpitude, surrounding OT, or Old Testament.
25 CO IN – Commanding Officer IN = coin, or money.

Another wonderful themed puzzle from Virgilius. All the across answers from French and quite a few references in the down clues too. As it happens, this blogger is very familiar with French so it was an unusually fast solve. The extra time gave me the opportunity to admire the excellent surface readings from the master.

Solving time: 12 mins

* = anagram

ACROSS

1 CHACUN A SON GOUT Literally, each to his taste. Norman = French

8 ON-DIT (I don’t)*

11 C’EST LA GUERRE Literally, that’s war (a resigned shrug)

17 MOTS Most with last letters reversed (’twist’)

18 ELAN(d)

19 CRI DE COEUR (Occurred i.e)* literally, a cry from the heart.

22 ENTREPRENEUR Hidden. Congrats on hiding 12 successive letters!

27 VINGT-ET-UN Twenty-one (card game) - Score (20) is ’slightly exceeded’

28 PARDON MY FRENCH

DOWN

1 CUB A The 1962 Cuba missile crisis

2 AWAY “Where there’s a will there’s a way”!

3 UN G(U)ENT

4 A S SET S-class = s set

14 TARANTELLA Once regarded as cure for dance craze (tarantism) apparently

20 COUNTER Double definition

21 PERNOD (ponder)*

23 NANCY Double definition

24 ET ON one, the pronoun not the number.

25 INCH hidden