POPULAR SONGS. 



' Las ! ' dit-il, ' je laisoe aujourd'hui 

 Mu chiere espouse encor vivant. 

 Adieu, ma dame a qui je suy ! 

 Pries pour moy, jo voys morant.' " 



The importance of a popular song was not, moreover, always to be judged 

 by that of the event which gave it birth. It often happened that great 

 political and national questions inspired only a few insignificant rhymes, 

 which lapsed into oblivion without evoking the sympathies of the masses, 

 while a tournament, a plenary court, a public ceremony, or a fte at some 

 feudal castle sufficed to evoke the muse of the people. The inspirations of this 

 fanciful muse were often in striking contrast to the circumstances which had 

 given them birth, for while some tragic occurrence would serve as a theme 

 for sarcastic or flippant songs, a matter which seemed to be a cause of 

 universal rejoicing would form the subject for some doleful ballad. The 

 divisions in popular opinion often found expression in their songs, and thus, 

 when Jacques Cle'ment assassinated King Henry III., who had been driven 

 from Paris by the League, at St. Cloud, some fanatical people sang the 

 murderer's praises in the following lines : 



" O le sainct rcligieux, 

 Jacques Clement bienheureux, 

 Des Jacobins 1' excellence, 

 Qui, par sa benevolence, 

 Ft de par le Sainct-Esprit, 

 A merite asseurance 

 La limit au Ciel ou il vi.st." 



The Politicians, or Royalists, rejoined with the following lines : 



" II fut tu6 par un meschant mutin 

 Jacques Clement qui estoit jacobin. 

 Jacques Clement, si tu estois a naistre, 

 Las ! nous aurions nostre Roy, nostre maistre ! " 



It would sometimes happen that after a certain interval a song of noble 

 and solemn melancholy would be converted into a burlesque parody without 

 any apparent cause or reason. Thus the battle of Pavia (1525), at which the 

 flower of the French nobility perished around Franois I., who was made 

 prisoner, was a most appropriate subject for a popular song, and amongst 



