6 
The distinction between the newer and older French songs 
in Canada was not very clear. The elimination of some was 
necessary, for the songs, particularly at points within easy reach 
of a town, were not all of folk extraction. A singer’s repertory 
was like a curiosity shop; trifles and recent importations vied 
with old-time relics. 
The French “romances” of 1820-40 were once the fashion. 
Not a few of them, like the satires on Bonaparte, had somehow 
found their way into America, in print or otherwise, and filtered 
down into the older strata of local lore, where they still persist 
long after their demise in the homeland. Many songs passed 
from mouth to mouth until they no longer remained the exclusive 
favourites of school and barracks, and country folk were on the 
lookout for just such novelties. 
Compilations printed in Canada and ballad sheets imported 
from France ( imageries d’Epinal et de Metz) spread their influence 
to many quarters. Among the additions from this latter source 
we count Pyrame et Thisbe , on an old Greek theme, Damon et 
Henriette , a mediaeval story. Cartouche et Mandrin and Le Juif 
errant (the Wandering Jew). The length of these exceeds that 
of ordinary folk-songs. They also have a literary turn in the 
manner of Aucassin et Nicolette. Pyrame and Damon both con- 
sist of more than two hundred lines, whereas ordinary folk-songs 
seldom pass beyond forty or fifty. 
The ancient canticle of Alexis occurs in two forms; the first, 
out of the Cantiques de Marseille, the oldest song-book in Canada 
— well before 1800; and the second from hitherto unrecorded 
sources of the past. Under its literary form it goes back to the 
tenth or eleventh century; it is the first known religious song in 
the French language— lingua vulgaris — at its very birth as a 
written and church language. 
The true folk-songs arrived in Canada before 1 680 with the 
early settlers from the provinces of Normandy and the Loire 
river. These songs far exceed all others, and they are incom- 
parably the best. Their style is pure and crisp, their themes 
clear-cut and tersely developed. Their prosody differs widely 
from that of the troubadours and from literary French. Grace 
and refinement prevail throughout, and in some there are flashes 
of genius. Here is decidedly not the work of untutored peasants, 
