4 o 4 POPULAR SONGS. 



other touching incidents was the death of Jacques de Chabannes, Lord of La 

 Palice, who was killed at the feet of his sovereign. The ballad, composed in 

 his honour, began 



" Monsieur de La Palice est mort, 

 Est mort devant Pavie." . . . 



But within a century this national song had been travestied in such a way 

 that it had become impossible to recognise it, and some one made it ridiculous 

 by adding as a joke to the above two lines 



" Helas ! s'il if estoit pas mort, 

 II seroit encore en vie." 



Sometimes, too, there would reappear in a new shape some old song which 

 was scarcely remembered by the older generation, but which seemed to 

 acquire fresh youth when, with an altered name, it was applied to some other 

 subject. Thus, after the battle of Malplaquet in 1709, the rumour of the 

 death of the English commander, the Duke of Marlborough, having spread 

 through the ranks of the French army, which had suffered so much at his 

 hands, the soldiers began to sing, out of revenge, a sort of comic ballad, which 

 was only the imitation of a popular song entitled the "Convoi du Due de 

 Guise," which all the Huguenot soldiers knew by heart after the assassination 

 of Fran9ois de Lorraine, called Le Balafre (covered with scars), beneath the 

 walls of Orleans (1563). Appended are some of the couplets of this old song 

 which most resemble the " Chanson de Malbrough," and which was revived 

 two centuries later by the court of Louis XVI., when Madame Poitrine, 

 the nurse of the Dauphin, taught it to Marie Antoinette : 



" Qui veut ouir chanson f 



C'est du grand due de Guise, 

 Doub, dan, don, dan, dou, don, 



Dou, dou, dou, 

 Qu'est mort et enterre. 



Qu'est mort et enterre. 

 Aux quatre coins de sa tombe, 

 Doub, dan, don, &c. 



Quatr'gentilhomm's y avoit. 



