Where does the stereotype of the French and being spies come from? Also why are most words associated with spying French and unchanged in English, example: Espionage, Sabotage, Saboteur. In modern media there are a lot of references to the French in spying as well; CIV VI the French get bonuses to spies, Team Fortress the Spy has a French accent, Dragon Age the country that is based on France has a lot of spies (bards). Where does this come from historically? Where the French always known for Spying? Why are the spies stereotyped as being French, and where does this come from?
Historically the French were the first to use espionage in Western Europe in a wide and centralized manner.Starting around the late 1500s-early 1600s (what is now) espionage was seen as more important by the French leaders who started making use of things like reading (others) letters, sending more infiltrators in complex operations, assigning more intelligence related duties to certain diplomatic personnel, and also people ('Spymasters', etc) dedicated solely towards organizing and running these operations.
Louis XIV's reign saw the above become much larger in importance, and grew significantly. His time as King also saw a larger focus on making domestic informant rings to inform on dissidents, and became more precedented after.
I'm not 100% on the words themselves sure but I presume the words now exist in those form because the French terms became widely used before the art itself was widespread.