Tonnerre de Brest !

Literally: Thunder of Brest!

Example: “Tonnerre de Brest ! Qui a encore pris mon tire-bouchon ?” — Blistering barnacles! Who took my corkscrew again?

English equivalent: Blistering barnacles

Origin: Brest gets its share of drizzle but no more thunder than anywhere else, so the thunder in the oath was never weather — it was a cannon, and by some accounts the gun itself was called the Tonnerre de Brest. There were two reasons to hear it. The naval arsenal fired blanks at six in the morning and seven in the evening as the gates opened and closed, so the whole town ran on it; and a shot signaled an escape from the Brest penal colony, alerting the police and telling the inhabitants there was a reward available to anyone who caught the man. Vidocq, who escaped from it before becoming head of the Paris police, was one of the runners. The escape gun carried far across the roadstead, as far as Landerneau, which is very likely the source of cela va faire du bruit dans Landerneau. Why this particular bang became a sailor's oath rather than any other local noise is unrecorded — Hergé then put it in Captain Haddock's mouth alongside mille sabords and secured it permanently.