* * * so , as november blustered its way into december , james bond went unwillingly back to school , swotting up heraldry at his desk instead of top-secret reports , picking up scraps of medieval french and english , steeping himself in fusty lore and myth , picking the brains of sable basilisk and occasionally learning interesting facts , such as that the founders of gamages came from the de gamaches in normandy and that walt disney was remotely descended from the d'isignys of the same part of france .