French opening - what was wrong?

I just finished a game with a strong player.  I thought the French opening is very solid, but I had to quit the game at an early time.  Can any of you help me to find out where I made a mistake(s)?  How the game should have been proceeded safely to the middle game.  Thanks in advance.

After 13.Qxe4+, if I play 13...Be7, then White can play Qxb7 to get a rook.  I have to castle immediately.  He will then retrieve his bishop or move his rook to e1.  The black bishop is hanging.  I would lose at least one piece. 

Thanks for the comments.  

I admit that 8...Qa5+ is a lost of time.  I was trying to get rid of the annoying pin of the white bishop put on the f6 knight.  Also I was expecting to win the white knight on c3. 

Later I  found that I will lose my bishop if I put it at e7.  So it was too late to castle. 

c5 Is not an usual move, there are 2 main veriations (that I know about) here:

3... Bb6 called the winewar (or something like that), and when the knight is pinned you play c5

3... Nf6 this looks like a weard move, but it have the idea of e5 (breaking the tense) and Nd7 which sopports c5 (another veriation is 4...Ne4, but I didn't used is...)

after 4... exd5 you lost a pawn , right !?

I know I'm gonna get flamed to no end after saying this but the French is NOT solid... It takes a very talented if not experienced player to give a prepared white a game.

Especially the classical french, I lick my lips every time I see one.

To be fair though, the French IS sound... just takes some practice. 

Well, not flamed but it seems you've not been seeing French players who know their game.  I remember when I was but a wee "D" player and an "A" player was trying to wipe me off the board.  I knew my defense, however, and even his "novelty" (new to me) was insufficent as I stuck to the ideas of the French.  I had him beat but overlooked a spite check which cost me a piece (it was this big, honest but the line snapped).

The French is solid.  In any opening an unprepared player will come off worse against a prepared player.  I have found that people who play openings like the French, Caro, Alekhine are weaker players with limited time to spend on the opening.  Thus they pick a defense which greatly limits Whites choices but even then don't put the effort necessary into it.

 This is complete nonsense.

I guess Morozevich (plays the french), Karpov (plays the caro), and Carlsen (plays Alekhine) are weak players with little time to spend on openings. 

The French can be as solid (Tarrasch mainlines) or as double-edged (Alekhine-Chatard attack) as white chooses.

 And of course, from my days, Korchnoi. Look at the World Championship matches.  I made the point badly.  I was talking of club players, the description was fairly accurate of myself for instance.  Once club players start hitting "A" level they often start looking more closely at things like the Sicilian, Ruy, etc allowing White more choices but giving black more opportunities.  And remember we are looking at it from Black's view.  Black has to allow the Tarrasch or the Alekhine, White cannot get them without cooperation.

 Yea I suppose that's fairly accurate, I don't know any class-A players who play the french. It's all sicilians and queen's gambits and ruys and such. I'm a class-B player myself and most of the people I play on my level don't know very much theory at all and/or play "systems" like the colle or london. As black I see a lot of e5 and c5.