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Is it safe to assume that the BB on this Peugot is French threaded?
No. I think it's more likely to be English threaded: even before they dropped French threads altogether, they were using the English standard. I'm not certain when this was, but I seem to remember it was in the Eighties.
Regarding the seat stay bridge, it's one of the details that can give a broad indication of a frame's quality: it's not a significant component so ripe for cost cutting.
There are no hard and fast rules, but if you look at enough frames you'll get an idea. At the budget end is a plain tube with a hole drilled in it and at the other, shaped and detailed pieces:
Yours is somewhere in the middle, being a tube with a mount, which is in keeping with the frame overall: above average, but not exceptional.
The dropouts and fork ends provide similar clues to quality: they're not an obvious component (particularly once the wheels are on) and relatively expensive. Campagnolo ends were pricey, Gipiemme less so (but still good quality); stamped (rather than cast) ends are as cheap and nasty as it gets.
Yours are cast but unbranded, so I guess they were made by someone who's name didn't carry any clout and Peugeot didn't want to spend the extra Francs having their's added.
Scilly.Suffolk-
Thanks again for expanding on your reply. Based on what I'd learned about the bike so far, I had decided to forgo a full restoration and build it up as a rat bike. Possibly not the wisest choice, there was grease in the bearings that must be original, it was the consistency of old Loctite 242 and far harder to clean off. Thank god for cheap and plentiful cleaning alcohol. The freewheel turned out to be an old Regina, and of course I don't have the damn removal tool for that one.
I gave the frame another really good scrubbing as well, and the maker's marks emerged on the dropouts, they are by Simplex. The last Simplex item I owned was the rear mech on my Raleigh 5-speed in the mid 1970s. The BB was indeed English threaded, and also turned out to be cup and cone, another thing I haven't seen for a very long time. I couldn't get the fixed cup out even with my biggest spanner, but it's not going anywhere so no real problem.
Amazingly, despite the state of the lubrication with petrified 1980s grease, the headset, BB, and wheel bearings are all in perfect shape.
MarkSouth
That's it, thank you for finding this. It now looks like restoring it to original would involve finding a lot of new old parts.
Incidentally, does it seem like this bike was named after a character in the Narnia books?
EDIT: Another question: Is it safe to assume that the BB on this Peugot is French threaded?