[wood] footnotes to CANADIAN FOLKSONGS 91 



serious enough as a general thing, witness A la santé de ces jeunes 

 mariés ; but the other songs popuLir at weddings have been so univer- 

 sally^ distinguished for their non-Christian tone, that, together with the 

 equally popular Pagan dirges, they have rarely failed t'o draw down upon 

 them the anathema of the Church. In 650 the Council of Chalons had 

 to threaten song-loving women with excommunication — to say nothing of 

 the cat-o'-nine-tails ; and St. Augustin speaks of the " cantica nefaria " 

 which were sung and danced to, even upon the tombs of the saints ! " 

 The strange mixture of gravity and gauloiserie at weddings is well 

 illustrated in the Gascon songs,''^ which are sung on the way to and from 

 church, at the feast, and even in the bridal chamber itself. It is inter- 

 esting to notice what an old-time view the Canadian songs take of the 

 sanctity of betrothal : Petite Jeanneton evidently thinks that having her 

 " petit cœur en gage " is no light atfair ; but she does not take so stern a 

 view of the situation as the Bretons, who say — " Quiconque est tiancée 

 trois fois sans se marier va brûler en enfer." ^-^ 



The Canadians have no dirges ; at least neither Mr. Gagnon nor Dr. 

 Lariie say a word about them ; and this is perhaps natural enough, for 

 the popular dirge is Pagan to the core, and the (Janadian folksinger takes 

 an unusually Christian view of death. 



Nor should we suppose fronr Mr. Gagnon s collection that they had 

 any war-songs either. There are, indeed, scattered references to war ; but 

 that is all. The universally -known deserter sings. 



Un jour l'envie m'a pris 

 De déserter de France ; '^ 



'•les enfants sans souci '' are soldiers, but they are doing nothing more 



warlike than drinking "pots et pintes, vidant les verres aussi," and 



doing it in barracks, too.^^ In Gal le rosier^ the singer's lover is a 



prisoner of war in Holland,^' and Cadieux refers to the bush-fights with 



the Iroquois ; but none of these are war-songs in any proper meaning of 



the term. Dr. Larue gives us tw'O genuine iJed River war -songs, both 



composed by Pierriche Falcon,^' who was one of the Bois-Brûlés of 1816, 



and fought the English as vigorously in arms as in verse. His songs are 



full of local colour, of the glory of the Bois- Brûlés and of the defeat of 



the English — or rather of " les Arkanys " ; they have a spice of (jauloi- 



serie and the all-essential lilt, but nevertheless Pierriche Falcon, " ce 



faiseur de chansons," is many degrees below the Tyrtean level. As for 



military topical songs, like C'est la Casquette du i^ére Biujeaud./''' which 



was composed in Algeria and sung at Inkermaqn, they are practically 



unknown in Canada. When Canadian troops sing in camp or on the 



march, they choose a song like En roulant mo. houle, which has a 



splendid swing, or one like Napoleon's favourite Malbrouche, in which 



war jjlays little more than a nominal part. 



Chivalry, as we might expect with the scions of a gallant race, has 



