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Mazarin, author of woe: the lyrics and melodies of the Recueil général de toutes les chansons mazarinistes

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Mazarin, author of woe: the lyrics and melodies of the Recueil général de toutes les chansons mazarinistes

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Mazarin, Author of Woe:
The Lyrics and Melodies of the Recueil général de toutes les chansons mazarinistes

Nathan Dougherty
Early Music Performance
Master of Arts
University of Southern California
August 9, 2016

Table of Contents

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 1 - The Parlementary Fronde and the Mazarinade Pamphlets ...........................................4
Chapter 2 – A Thematic Analysis of the Recueil général Lyrics ..................................................24
Chapter 3 – The Melodies of the Recueil général .........................................................................44
Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 62
Appendix 1 – The Recueil général Lyrics, Translations, and Melodies ........................................65

1

Introduction

The Fronde (1649 – 1653) represented one of the most tumultuous events in seventeenth-
century France. An uprising that occurred during Louis XIV’s minority, the Fronde embroiled
members of the royal family, the royal council, the aristocracy, the sovereign courts, and the
lower classes of Paris and other major French cities in a devastating and violent conflict. Over
the course of the struggle, the royal court was forced to flee Paris, the royal forces blockaded the
capital city causing widespread famine, and the Italian-born premier ministre, Cardinal Jules
Mazarin, was even forced to temporarily leave France. Historians typically split the Fronde into
two distinct events: the parlementary Fronde (1648 – 1649) and the princely Fronde (1649 –
1653); this study will focus only on the first, the struggle between the royal court – led by
Mazarin and Louis XIV’s regent, Anne of Austria – and the sovereign courts of Paris,
particularly the Parisian Parlement.
Coinciding with the military struggle, the Fronde spawned an immense pamphlet war,
during which authors published libelles explaining their opinions on the uprising. In fact, over
the course of the Fronde, printers produced over 5,000 such examples.
1
In Paris, the printing
epicenter of France, the pamphlets were sold by bookshops or colporteurs, individual salesman
who walked the busy streets of the capital hawking their wares. Taken collectively, the
pamphlets came to be known as mazarinades, a term first coined by Paul Scarron in 1651.
Mazarinades varied greatly in subject matter, length, and style. They could be pro-Fronde, anti-
Fronde, or even neutral. Some were as short as a page, while the longest extant example is over
450 pages.
2
Pamphlet styles included letters, narratives, accounts, dialogues, sketches, farces,
ballets, portraits, visions, sermons, satires, and political treatises.
3
One of the most popular forms
was song; in fact, over 60 songs have been uncovered. One collection, the 1649 Recueil général
de toutes les chansons mazarinistes. Et avec plusieurs qui n’ont point estées chantées (to be
called the Recueil général), contains 27 chansons, making it a particularly rich source. Typical of
the genre, the pamphlet provides lyrics to be sung to an unnotated – but known and popular –

1
Christian Jouhaud, “Écriture et action au XVIIe siècle sur un corpus de mazarinades,” Annales. Histoires.
Sciences Sociales 38, no. 1 (Jan. – Feb. 1983), 42.
2
Ibid.
3
Hubert Carrier, La Presse de la Fronde (1648 – 1653): Les Mazarinades, la conquête de l’opinion
(Gevena: Librairie Droz, 1989), 295.
2

tune. The lyrics – which cover a range of controversial and seditious topics from Mazarin’s
villainy to the military conflict at Charanton – create a compelling narrative of the parlementary
Fronde from the perspective of a frondeur rebel.
4
This fascinating collection of songs is the focus
of this study. Chapter 1 will provide the background information necessary for understanding the
Recueil général. It will discuss key details of both the Fronde and the mazarinades, and will then
describe the tradition of political song during the uprising. Chapter 2 will focus on the lyrics of
the Recueil général, examining them collectively in order to extrapolate and explain the opinions
and motivations of the frondeur songwriters.
As valuable as the lyrics of the Recueil général are as historical and literary sources, they
were never intended to be simply read; rather, songwriters meant for them to be sung publicly in
busy places like the Pont-Neuf. And, because they indicated the pre-existing melodies for nearly
all songs in the collection,
5
it is possible to partly recreate how the Parisians would have heard
them. Chapter 3 identifies melody sources and examines several performance issues that arise
when matching the melodies to their corresponding mazarinade lyrics. It should be noted that
several scholars – namely Claude Duneton, Pierre Barbier, and France Vernillat – have already
endeavored to match melodies with several of the sung mazarinades. Duneton, for instance,
dedicates four pages to the Recueil général and provides two notated melodies.
6
Barbier and
Vernillat, in the second volume of their eight-volume Histoire de la France par les chansons,
notate the melodies for five of the Recueil général chansons.
7
While these sources serve as an
effective starting point, they fail to be truly comprehensive. This study, in contrast,
systematically compiles and presents a more complete collection of the timbres of the Recueil
général, synthesizing – and expanding upon – such existing scholarship. At the time of writing, I
have matched thirteen chansons to their pre-existing melodies, seven of which do not appear in

4
It should be noted that the political songs found in the Recueil général bear striking resemblance – in both
form and function – to the English broadside ballads, a popular tradition extending from the beginning of Elizabeth
I’s reign to around 1700. Just as the Parisian Fronde-era songs commented on current events, so too did the
broadside ballads: “Suffice it to say that before the days of the newspaper and magazine, the broadside was a
medium of mass communication whose importance can scarcely be overestimated. It reported such historical events
as the coronation of William and Mary or Charles I’s escape after the battle of Worcester. It proved invaluable in
partisan propaganda…” From Claude M. Simpson, The Broadside Ballad and Its Music (New Jersey: Rutgers
University Press, 1966), x. For more, see Simpson’s book.
5
All chansons have specified timbres apart from 3 and 6. See Appendix 1 for all songs.
6
Claude Duneton, Histoire de la chanson française: des origines à 1780 (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1998),
510 – 514. He provides the timbre for chanson 5 in this section. He provides the timbre for chanson 9 on page 501.
7
Pierre Barbier and France Vernillat, Histoire de la France par les chansons: Mazarin et Louis XIV (Paris:
nrf Gallimard, 1956), 12 – 39. They provide the melodies for chansons 9, 10, 11, 20, and 24.
3

any previous study. Appendix 1 compiles all thirteen melodies in modern notation, as well as the
lyrics and translations for all songs in the Recueil général.
8

8
Unless otherwise noted, I did all transcriptions and translations found in the paper and Appendix 1.
4

Chapter 1
The Parlementary Fronde and the Mazarinade Pamphlets

The Fronde was, in the words of Sharon Kettering, “the most serious revolt” to occur in
France in the seventeenth century.
9
Taking its name from the French word for ‘sling’ – a play on
the activities of Parisian stone-slinging youths who would scatter and run in the face of authority,
only to regroup as soon as the coast was clear
10
– the popular uprising lasted five years total,
from 1648 to 1653. It was a complicated crisis, involving members of the royal court, the high
aristocracy, the sovereign courts, the governors of numerous provinces, and even foreign leaders,
like the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. Wendy
Gibson captures this complexity, asserting:
To write about the Fronde is to rush where angels fear to tread. So says everyone best qualified to know:
from actual contemporaries of this seventeenth-century French civil war…to authoritative modern French
historians, who pronounce the subject to be one which admits of neither accuracy, clarity, nor
conciseness.
11

Historians split the crisis into two distinct periods: the parlementary Fronde (1648 – 1649) and
the princely Fronde (1649 – 1653). For purposes of this study, with its focus on a collection of
song lyrics published in 1649, only the parlementary Fronde need be explained. Beginning on
January 15, 1648, it centered largely in and around Paris.
12
At its core, it was a legal and armed
conflict between the sovereign courts of Paris, as represented by the Parisian Parlement and their
aristocratic allies, and the royal court, led by Anne of Austria and Mazarin.
The cause of the Fronde was fundamentally financial, particularly regarding the increase
of existing, and the registration of new, taxes. In the 1630s and 40s, France was involved not
only in the Thirty Years War, but in a costly and prolonged war with Spain. In order to raise
revenue for these military efforts, the royal court first raised the taille, a tax on all feudal land not
owned by the nobility. The often violent collection of this tax resulted in debilitating poverty for
many peasants. As Orest Ranum writes:
From the villages and hamlets of the governing Parisians came reports of brutal tactics used by officials and
troops to extort taxes from the peasants…in the first poor years they sold what reserves of livestock and

9
Sharon Kettering, “Patronage and Politics during the Fronde,” from French Historical Studies 14, no. 3
(Spring, 1986), 409.
10
Wendy Gibson, A Tragic Farce: The Fronde (1648-1653) (Exeter: Elm Bank Publications, 1998), 1.
11
Ibid., 1.
12
Geoffrey Treasure, Mazarin: The Crisis of Absolutism in France (New York: Routledge, 1995), 110.
5

grain they had to pay taxes; but as the depression dragged on, they were forced to sell fields, their last
livestock, and even their furniture.
13

He notes that numerous peasants were forced to liquidate their belongings in order to pay the
taille. However, that tax alone failed to provide the required revenue for the war effort,
especially given the poor harvests of the 1640s; the royal council – financially directed by the
contrôleur général Particelli d’Hémery – began to seek new sources for money.
14
In 1644, they
submitted a new fine, the toisé, to be applied on all new buildings in the faubourgs around Paris.
Further, in 1646, d’Hémery enacted a tariff on all goods entering Paris by land or river. Like the
increase in the taille, these directly and profoundly impacted the poor.
15
The royal council did
not spare the wealthy citizens of Paris, however. In 1644, they were forced to issue loans to the
crown in the form of rentes, whose interest rates then began to fall due to the crown’s
bankruptcy. These increases in taxation coupled with poor harvests caused tensions to rise.
People even began to question the news about the wars given by Cardinal Richelieu and, later, by
Mazarin. As Treasure writes, “if his enemies had ‘shed their blood like water’, if the royal armies
were victorious by land and by sea, why did peace seem as remote as ever? Were ministers
pursuing war because it was profitable to them and to their financial associates?”
16

As Parisians became more disillusioned with Anne, Mazarin, and the royal council, they
turned to the Paris Parlement for reform. Treasure argues:
Salaries, rentes, tariffs, now offices: the pressure appeared to be inexorable. Ministers were haunted by fear
of mutinies in the armies, a rising in the province. Magistrates, hurrying home from hot debates in the
Palais de Justice, to their houses in the Marais, the rue Saint-Honore or the newly fashionable Faubourg
Saint-Germain, saw another face of the country’s crisis: famished people, many of them new arrivals from
the stricken countryside; beggars more numerous than ever, tradesmen out of work, women unable to feed
their children: a volatile city close to eruption: in short, a situation in which the magistrates must lead or be
themselves the targets of the people’s rage.
17

On January 15, 1648, when a lit de justice was called to force the registration of seven new
financial edicts – including the creation of new offices, forced loans, and yet another increase of
the taille – Parlement refused to register it until it was so watered that it was essentially
unenforceable. Jacques le Coigneux, one of the more radical magistrates, even asserted that
Parlement had the authority to “consent to taxation, that they acted as the intermediaries between

13
Orest Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2002), 275.
14
Ibid., 274.
15
Treasure, 105.
16
Ibid., 103.
17
Ibid., 108.
6

the king and the poor, and that this responsibility was not superseded by the king’s absolute
power except in the most extreme of circumstances.”
18
When Anne ordered Parlement to desist
in their legislating, they ignored her. All the while, they heaped scorn on the tax collectors,
which further ingratiated them with the Parisians.
19
In an attempt to regain control over the
magistrates, the royal council threatened their offices by only reinstating the paulette for the
lower sovereign courts.
20
Far from cowing and dividing them, however, the action inspired the
registration of an arrêt d’union, effectively rejecting the partial renewal and uniting the four
sovereign courts of Paris under Parlement. This unprecedented action threatened the balance of
power in the capital.
When Anne attempted to quash the arrêt d’union, Antoine Broussel, a particularly radical
and well-respected magistrate, called for a Chambre de Saint Louis in which Parlement could air
its grievances with Anne and Mazarin. Seeking to appease Parlement, the royal council
sanctioned the meeting, and even invited Gaston d’Orléans, the king’s uncle, to facilitate. This
increased his prominence in governmental affairs, and legitimized and added prestige to the
event. In lieu of the simple, one-week meeting anticipated by the court, however, the magistrates
spent seven weeks crafting a series of radical financial reforms, which included reducing the
taille by one quarter and granting Parlement the official right to approve all new taxes. The
Parisians met these reforms with a great deal of enthusiasm. As Treasure argues, Parlement
became:
…guardian of the Parisians’ material concerns, having powers of government concerning markets, prices
and food supplies, the state of roads and bridges, hospitals, charities, crime, beggary and prostitution. Since
it was apparently being opposed by the royal ministers, there was a rough logic as well as rough manners in
the peasants’ partisanship.
21

In other words, Parisians and peasants began to view Parlement as their true representatives, and,
because of that, they began to vilify the royal council, especially Mazarin. With the army abroad,

18
Paul Sonnino, Mazarin’s Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), 155.
19
Ranum, 288. Ranum argues that parlement was right to point out the corruption of the tax collectors, as
they typically kept between thirty-four and forty-five percent of the revenue they collected. He further asserts that, in
many ways, the magistrates were quite hypocritical, because many of them either rose through the ranks beginning
as tax collectors, or had family members who were still engaged in that activity.
20
The paulette, or the droit annuel, was the “key contractual arrangement linking the value of offices as
property to the individuals who owned the office. A tax of one-sixtieth of the purchase price had to be paid every
year if an officeholder wished to retain his office.” Essentially, the paulette guaranteed the continued transmission of
the magistrate’s office and was the way for magistrates to protect the investments in their positions. Orest Ranum,
The Fronde: A French Revolution 1648 - 1652 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company), 86.
21
Treasure, Mazarin, 124.
7

Mazarin and Anne had no alternative but to begrudgingly agree to Parlement’s proposed reforms.
On July 31, the regent called a lit de justice in order to register, under her own authority,
moderate versions of the reforms proposed by the Chambre de Saint Louis. This registration of
Parlement-led legislation was an enormous victory for the magistrates, and demonstrated the
sovereign court’s waxing influence in French governance.
That power dynamic shifted, however, with a resounding French military victory over the
Spanish on August 20, 1648. With the army, and its most celebrated general Louis II de
Bourbon, Prince de Condé, free to return to Paris and support the royal council, Mazarin and
Anne found the confidence and the means to combat the Parisian Parlement. They took action on
August 26, 1648, after the Te deum celebrating the French victory, arresting three of the most
radical magistrates, and dragging the beloved Broussel from his home. Though the royal court
had hoped to subdue Parlement and reestablish their own absolute authority, they failed to
anticipate the Parisian response to their actions. Indeed, they inadvertently set off a chain of
events so momentous that Treasure compares it to July of 1789.
22
News of Broussel’s arrest
spread quickly, and Parisians responded as they have time and time again: they set up barricades
and rioted for three days. As Ranum writes:
the bridges and principal streets leading from the cité, the seat of the Parlement, to the Palais-Royal,
residence of the Queen Mother and Mazarin, were barricaded and crowded with Parisians shouting, ‘Vive le
Roi, Vive le Parlement, Vive Monseiur de Broussel.’ Clerks and scribes from the court, bourgeois, petty
merchants, and day laborers all joined in a militant protest against Broussel’s arrest.
23

All said, more than 20,000 Parisians congregated outside the Palais Royal and erected more than
1,200 barricades.
24
They prevented royal guards from reaching the Palais de Justice and forced
the chancellor Séguier – who had been sent to stop the judges from convening – to hide out in his
brother-in-law’s closet while rioters destroyed his house.
25
The crowd, however, allowed more
than 150 magistrates to march from the Palais de Justice to meet with Anne to secure Broussel’s
freedom. When they initially failed, the crowd angrily refused to let them pass and forced them
to return to the palace to try again. In the face of so angry and volatile a mob, the royal council
relented and ordered Broussel’s release on August 29. When he returned to Paris, the mob
dispersed.

22
Treasure, 127.
23
Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism, 289.
24
Ranum, The Fronde, 156.
25
Ibid., 159.
8

With the failure of Mazarin’s gambit, and Paris now stirred up in favor of Parlement, he,
the king, and the royal court fled Paris on September 13, 1648 for Rueil, nine miles west of Paris.
From there, Anne ordered the exile and arrest of the Marquis de Châteauneuf and the compte de
Chavigny, both suspected frondeurs. Her actions, again, pitted Parlement against the royal
council, with the magistrates going so far as to threaten the renewal of a 1617 edict forbidding
foreigners – like Mazarin – from participating in government. Again, Gaston d’Orléans stepped
in to act as an intermediary between Parlement and the royal council to deescalate the situation;
this time, Condé joined him. They held a conference at Saint-Germaine-en-Laye, and on October
24, 1648, Parlement registered a new edict reinforcing the reforms of the summer and also
forbade the king from indefinitely detaining members of the sovereign courts. Hoping that this
would finally end the conflict, Anne and Mazarin agreed to Parlement’s demands. This ushered
in a period of relative peace, in which Anne, Mazarin, and the king returned to Paris on October
31 and Parlement went into recess.
The respite was short-lived, however, as tensions began to rise in December of 1648. The
sovereign courts – specifically the cour d’Enquêtes – began to investigate transgressions against
the October 24 edict. Further, bread prices continued to rise, increasing the pressure on
Parlement to yet again defend the common people of Paris.
26
With mounting parlementary rabble
rousing, Anne and Mazarin sent Condé as an intermediary; far from placating the magistrates,
however, he reportedly struck a condescending tone, further riling them up. As Gibson writes:
A prince of the blood royal trying to silence a cocky Parlement president is a tableau which neatly sums up
the drift of events during the opening months of the Fronde. Whilst the prestige and popularity of the
monarchy had sunk, the Paris Parlement had to all appearances ridden on the crest of the wave. It had seen
other sovereign courts rally around it, citizens of the capital take up arms on behalf of its arrested members,
downtrodden taxpayers of the real hail it as a deliverer, and princes come to parlay with it…it had forced
the queen regent to officially authorise assemblies which she felt powerless to prevent…
27

Anne and Mazarin’s frustration with their apparent powerlessness spurred them to yet again
remove the king and the royal court from Paris. On January 5, 1649, just before dawn, they set
out once more for Saint-Germain-en-Laye, rallying both Gaston d’Orléans and Condé to their
cause. The next day, Anne sent orders for Parlement to transfer to Montargis, outside of Paris.
The magistrates refused to open the order without speaking to the regent in person, a meeting she
refused to grant. The royal council further issued a memorandum, stating: “We hold firm in

26
Treasure, 137.
27
Gibson, 19.
9

wishing that the authority of the king be fully restored; that is, all that has occurred during the
past eight months be deleted from its [Parlement’s] register and all memory of it obliterated.”
28

Anne and Mazarin, in other words, essentially sought to undo all of the reforms Parlement had
registered in 1648. They further ordered Condé to surround Paris with the royal army, effectively
blockading the city. These affronts spurred Parlement on January 8, 1649, to officially label
Mazarin as a disturber of the peace and an enemy of the state, giving him eight days to leave
France.
29
They then raised the urban militia – made up largely of the bourgeois – in order to
defend the city from Condé’s 10,000 royal troops, whose blockade and devastation of the pro-
Parlement country-side around Paris caused major food shortages within the city.
30

In the face of growing tensions between Anne, Mazarin, and the royal council on one side
and the Parisians and their sovereign courts on the other, certain aristocrats rallied to the
frondeur cause and offered their leadership services to Parlement and the urban militia. The duc
d’Elbeuf was the first to offer his aid, likely in response to what he considered unfair and harsh
punishments meted out against his family by Mazarin in the 1630s and by his own jealousy of
Condé’s notoriety.
31
The importance of his family name, Lorraine, carried weight with the
people of Paris, especially given that his ancestor – the duc de Guise – led the Parisian revolution
against Henri III in 1588. Initially given complete control of the militia, his position became
more tenuous when the Prince de Conti joined the frondeurs. The brother of Condé, his presence
further legitimized Parlement’s cause. Conti’s role, however, presented major drawbacks. Not
only did he have a conflict of leadership with d’Elbeuf,
32
he was a nineteen-year-old hunchback
who was apparently profoundly unfit to lead.
33
As Treasure characterizes him, Conti “needed
little persuading to find a role more prominent than he had enjoyed as the unregarded younger
brother of the famous general [Condé]. His name, wealth, and position as governor of
Champagne, on France’s vulnerable eastern flank ensured him a prominence his personality and

28
Treasure, 139.
29
Gibson, 22.
30
Yves-Marie Bercé, The Birth of Absolutism: A History of France, 1598 – 1661, translated by Richard
Rex (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 169.
31
Ranum, The Fronde, 188.
32
D’Elbeuf at first refused to cede control to Conti, despite Conti’s higher position as a prince of the blood.
A committee of judges was convened, and it was decided that “Conti would be ‘generalissimo’ of the Parisian
forces, and d’Elbeuf the ‘general,’ with particular and exclusive command of the cavalry. Difficulties almost
immediately cropped up over the command structure of the army, but it was agreed for the time being that Conti and
Elbeuf would command on alternate days.” Ranum, The Fronde, 190.
33
Gibson, 21.
10

abilities did little to deserve.”
34
The Parisian Cardinal de Retz – a key frondeur himself –
characterized Conti as “a zero who added up to something only because he was a prince of the
blood.”
35
Finally, the duc de Beaufort – a member of the infamous group les importants – joined
with the Parisians. Having just escaped from the prison at Vincennes in 1648, Parisians viewed
him as an effective anti-Mazarin hero. Described by Treasure as “rash and vain,” he nonetheless
proved to be the frondeur’s most effective military leader. With the entry of these three into
Paris, a few other nobles found the motivation to fight against Mazarin, including the duc de
Bouillon, the maréchal de la Mothe-Houdancourt, and the duc de Longueville, Conti’s brother-
in-law and governor of Normandy.
The following three months, while tense, did not involve many conflicts between the
royal troops and the magistrates’ army. In order to keep support going for the conflict, the
generals merely “went through warlike motions, lightly peppering the Bastille with cannon-
shots, reviewing troops in the fashionable Place Royale under the admiring eyes of ladies, and
making ineffectual sallies outside the city.”
36
The frondeurs enjoyed a few successes, particularly
in efforts carried out by Beaufort. He secured the passage of a food convoy from Estampes and
captured Villejuif, bringing in another vital convoy. His military successes made him popular; in
one case, after the Parisians believed that he had been captured by enemy troops, his return to the
city was “greeted by an ecstatic crowd and a feu de joie, with candles in every window.”
37
The
one major military engagement, however, was an unmitigated disaster for the frondeurs. In
January, Condé’s troops had largely surrounded Paris, leaving Charanton, a town southeast of the
city, as the only entry in and out of the capital. In order to maintain that vital supply route, the
frondeur stationed a garrison there, headed by General Bertrand de Clanleu. In February, rumors
circulated that Condé planned to take the town. In response, the magistrates and their noble allies
raised an army of 8,000 militiamen, which then marched to defend Charanton on February 8,
1648. When they arrived, however, they found that the town had already beeb taken by Condé.
Their garrison, along with Clanleu, had been slaughtered defending Charanton’s bridge. Despite
having 2,000 more men than Condé, Conti and d’Elbeuf ordered the retreat of the frondeur army.
This was the last military effort of the parlementary Fronde. With Paris now effectively isolated,

34
Treasure, 136.
35
As quoted in Gibson, 23.
36
Gibson, 23.
37
Treasure, 145.
11

“the fall of Charanton to the forces of the king and the Council gave Mazarin an important
victory. It was now only a matter of time before the Parisian frondeurs would be forced to
negotiate the terms of their defeat.”
38

Parlement and Anne agreed to hold a conference in March at Rueil, halfway between
Paris and Saint-Germain. Due to the blockade, their military losses, and the general low morale
in Paris, Parlement and their aristocratic allies began the negotiations with little leverage. In fact,
a quick and humiliating settlement was reached on March 11, 1649. A seemingly resounding
royal victory, the terms required Parlement to “attend a lit de justice at St-Germain, to refrain
from assembling throughout the rest of the year except on ceremonial occasions, and to allow the
king to borrow in order to meet state expenditure in 1649 and 1650.”
39
However, before
registering the agreement, the frondeurs encouraged Archduke Leopold to invade from Spanish
Flanders. With this new external military threat, Mazarin and Anne quickly settled the domestic
disputes with the sovereign courts in order to free up the royal army. Parlement, thus, was able to
negotiate a significantly more favorable settlement, including pardons for radical frondeurs and
protection for the reforms of 1648. With the agreement officially registered on April 1, 1649
“Parlement had won on most important points.”
40
The aristocratic generals also benefitted,
receiving additional titles and great sums of money; yet, they felt that their interests had been
sacrificed, that they had been abandoned by Parlement in the conferences at Rueil.
41
Even so,
this deal, and the royal court’s subsequent move back into Paris that summer, marked the end of
the parlementary Fronde.
In so complicated a conflict – and in the face of poverty, violence, and famine – how did
frondeur leaders so effectively inform Parisians and motivate their support and cooperation for
such an extended period of conflict with the royal court? In some cases, as when Mazarin and
Anne arrested Broussel, rumor spread verbally. In others, literate citizens could read the Gazette,
which was founded in the 1630s. In most cases, however, leaders relied on political pamphlets
(libelles) to inform and sway the public. In the Fronde, these political pamphlets came to be
known as mazarinades, which is the term currently used to describe the entire corpus of

38
Ranum, The Fronde, 207.
39
Gibson, 25.
40
Treasure, 146.
41
Gibson, 26.
12

libelles.
42
Though modern historians often speak of the pamphlets in a very general way, there is
actually a great deal of variety in the body of work. In fact, the mazarinades, of which over 5,000
survive, ranged from one to 450 pages, and could be pro-Fronde, anti-Fronde, or even neutral
towards the conflict.
43
While historically dismissed as poorly-written and largely useless – in
1913 Leon Lecestre characterized them as ‘monotone, mediocre, annoying, and hollow’
44
–
some modern scholars now find a great deal of value in the texts. For instance, Hubert Carrier,
who completed by far the most extensive study on mazarinades in recent years, describes the
pamphlets as:
…Reflections of opinion that, at the same time, also influences it; from pamphlet to reader, there is always
a two-way flow: the Mazarinades are all at once a mirror in which one identifies public opinion and a mold
that shapes it, they explain reactions at the same time that they seek to provoke them.”
45

In other words, for frondeurs in 1649, libelles represented a way in which to spread information
around Paris and rally public support behind Parlement and against the royal council.
With over 5,000 extant examples, the mazarinade industry was expansive. In a study on
seventeenth-century French pamphlet culture, Jeffrey K. Sawyer called the period of the Fronde
the “most dramatic example of immediate pamphlet production as journalism.”
46
He offers
several reasons for the popularity and success of the libelles. First, they could be quickly created
as it only took a few days to manufacture the print, sales could thus begin shortly following a
major event. In fact, he argues that the production was so rapid that each pamphlet should be
considered within the weekly context of the political event it describes.
47
Second, they were
easily mass produced: “a good print shop could turn out more than one thousand sixteen-page
pamphlets in a day’s work, and many printers turned out dozens of pamphlets during years of
political crisis.”
48
And third, they offered authors a relatively inexpensive way to propagate their

42
It should be noted that the term Mazarinade was not coined until 1651, when it appeared in a pamphlet of
burlesque verse by Pierre Scarron.
43
Christian Jouhaud, “Écriture et action au XVIIe siècle sur un corpus de mazarinades,” Annales. Histoires.
Sciences Sociales 38, no. 1 (Jan. – Feb. 1983), 42.
44
As quoted in Jouhaud, 42.
45
Hubert Carrier, La Presse de la Fronde (1648-1653): Les Mazarinades, la conquête de l’opinion
(Gevena: Librairie Droz, 1989), 33. “…le reflet de l’opinion en même temps qu’il influe sur elle ; du libelle au
lecteur il y a toujours un courant à double sens : les Mazarinades sont à la fois un miroir où se reconnaît l’opinion
publique et un moule qui la façonne, elles expriment des réactions en même temps qu’elles cherchent à en
provoquer.”
46
Jeffrey K. Sawyer, Printed Poison: Pamphlet Propaganda, Faction Politics, and the Public Sphere in
Early Seventeenth-Century France (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 7.
47
Ibid., 8.
48
Ibid., 7.
13

ideas. Echoing Carrier, Sawyer argues that mazarinades represented a type of conscious political
action; essentially, they were inexpensive and easily-produced partisan writings meant to
encourage a specific group of people to do a specific thing.
49

By all accounts, the literate citizens of Paris had an enormous appetite for the
mazarinades. As Jeffrey Merrick characterizes it, the city was flooded with thousands of
pamphlets.
50
In fact, during the three months of Condé’s blockade in the parlementary Fronde –
January to March, 1649 – more than 1,200 pamphlets were produced.
51
According to Carrier, this
kept the printmakers in Paris busy enough that they did not need to take any other work; libelles
alone sustained their livelihoods.
52
Further, not only was it common for a mazarinade to have
three or four editions in Paris alone, “pamphlets were often purchased, read, and resold. In this
way, an edition of one thousand pamphlets could easily find its way into the hands of many more
than a thousand readers.”
53
While no records of sales exist from Paris, research has been done on
the inventories of the bookseller Nicolas of Grenoble. Even though his shop was outside of the
capital, mazarinades made up over 75% of titles he sold during the Fronde.
54
Among those
patrons, 66% were legal professionals – half of which were in the sovereign courts – 12% were
nobles, 7% were clergymen, and 5% were artisans and merchants.
55
While these numbers must
be taken with a grain of salt as many purchased libelles anonymously, they demonstrate that the
printed pamphlets penetrated many stratums of society. And indeed, the average price of a
mazarinade, a sol for an eight-page pamphlet, made them affordable for even the poorest
Parisians.
56

Yet, how were printmakers able to produce such an enormous amount of seditious
material, especially given the absolute nature of the French monarchy? The simple answer is that
censorship broke down during Louis XIV’s minority, when a regent controlled the state.
Ultimately, this answer also explains why the sovereign courts felt so justified and comfortable
challenging royal authority. For a comparison, during the reign of Louis XIII and his highly

49
Ibid., 8.
50
Jeffrey Merrick, “The Cardinal and the Queen: Sexual and Political Disorders in the Mazarinades,”
French Historical Studies 18, no. 3 (Spring, 1994), 668.
51
Ranum, The Fronde, 201.
52
Carrier, 424.
53
Sawyer, 69.
54
Carrier, 425.
55
Sawyer, 69.
56
Carrier, 425.
14

influential premier ministre Cardinal Richelieu, few political pamphlets were produced. By the
1620s, Richelieu gained effective control of the printing presses, expanding the use of a 1618
law regulating the industry to encompass the entirety of France.
57
While censorship laws relating
to pamphlets had existed since the reign of Francis I, this represented the first time that a means
of enforcing the laws presented itself: “the importance of the 1618 legislation was not the
novelty of its provisions…but that for the first time the Crown, the Parlement, the university, the
Châtelet, and the leaders of the printing trades had cooperated in establishing mechanisms to
regulate and police the industry.”
58
While clamping down on anti-government libelles, Richelieu
used the printing press to reinforce his own agenda. Government-sponsored propaganda designed
to project the dignity and magnificence of the monarchy flourished. Indeed, as Giuliano Ferretti
writes, “certainly, Richelieu had considerable means of influence which made all attacks against
his monopoly of the public space difficult, if not impossible.”
59
Such control of the printing
presses required the cooperation of many branches of the French government; in the face of a
weaker regent, and especially during times of civil unrest like the Fronde, it became impossible
to enforce such censorship. As Ranum characterizes it, “after Richelieu’s death late in 1642, and
Louis XIII’s a few months later, fears about royal punishment diminished. The regency of the
five-year-old Louis XIV inspired little awe among the judges and princes.”
60
During the Fronde,
writers and printers felt comfortable enough to supply the highly-demanded libelles to the eager
Parisian public. Interestingly, this sudden flourishing of the political pamphlet industry during
times of civil unrest had historical precedent. For example, the assassination of Henry IV in 1610
led to a pamphlet war from 1614-1617, when Marie de’ Medici reigned as regent for her minor
son, Louis XIII. During that crisis, “important campaigns were waged over religious matters,
foreign policy, and Henry’s treatment of the great nobility.”
61

Research shows that there were many risk-taking printers and booksellers in Paris during
the Fronde. Based on printed addresses on the title pages of the pamphlets, there were around

57
Sawyer, 25.
58
Ibid., 25.
59
Giuliano Ferretti, “Chansons et lutte politique au temps de Richelieu,” from Poésie, musique et société:
L’air de cour en France au XVIIe siècle, edited by Georgie Durosoir (Sprimont, Belgium: Mardaga, 2006), 48.
“Certes, Richelieu disposait de moyens d’influence considérables qui rendaient difficile, sinon impossibles toute
attaque contre son monopole de l’espace public.”
60
Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism, 279.
61
Darnton, 26.
15

250 printers and booksellers at the time.
62
According to reports from 1644 and 1645, there were
183 presses being run by 76 shops.
63
Prior to the Fronde, many of the smaller and less-known
shops struggled to survive due to economic slowdown throughout the 1640s; when fervor for
libelles skyrocketed, however, they suddenly found a great deal of new work.
64
This newfound
source of revenue, coupled with the weakness of royal enforcement previously discussed, likely
explains why so many were willing to produce such seditious material. Certain printers are now
known because they often attached themselves to specific writers or parties. The widow
Guillemont, for example, printed for Broussel, Retz, and Beaufort during the parlementary
Fronde.
65
However, in 47% of the mazarinades, the printers elected to omit their names and
addresses.
66
One printer reportedly went so far as to use a false address on the title page for the
sake of anonymity.
67
This anonymity, especially common in the more violent and overtly
seditious pamphlets, helped protect the printers from later reprisals, as “printers selling books
and pamphlets that had not been granted royal permission to publish were arrested and
sometimes were summarily tried and sentenced to death.”
68

While boutique booksellers attached to printers, like the one owned by Nicolas of
Grenoble, supplied the public with some mazarinades, it was colporteurs who sold the bulk of
the pamphlets. They carried them in baskets, shouting the provocative titles aloud to attract
customers in the streets. Like the printers, in times of a strong government privilege, city leaders
strictly regulated the colporteurs. For this reason, in 1634, there were only 50 in all of Paris.
However, during the Fronde, with little royal presence and high demand for pamphlets, there
were as many as 1,000 in the capital alone.
69
As intermediaries between the printers and the
public, the colporteurs decided which libelles to initially sell and also reported back the
popularity of certain titles, leading to the reprintings and further editions mentioned by Sawyer.
With the freedom to move about, colporteurs typically sold their wares on the Pont-Neuf – the

62
Hubert Carrier, La Presse de la Fronde (1648 – 1653): Les Mazarinades, les hommes du livre (Geneva:
Librairie Droz, 1991), 108.
63
Carrier, Les hommes du livre, 126.
64
Ibid., 127.
65
Ibid., 134.
66
Ibid., 150.
67
Ibid., 191.
68
Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism, 279.
69
Carrier, Les hommes du livre, 164.
16

center of Fronde activity in Paris – and other busy public places, like the grande salle du Palais
and the University quarter.
70

Despite the over-generalizations of some historians – such as Herbert H. Rowen, who
writes that “the Mazarinades…display scabrous sarcasm and sometimes wit, but no lofty thought
or sentiments”
71
– the libelles came in many forms, varying greatly in quality and style.

Forms
included letters, narratives, accounts, dialogues, sketches, farces, ballets, portraits, visions,
sermons, satires, and political treatises.
72
As Carrier writes, “all literary genres, all types of
expression, all sorts of styles, from trivial to sublime, are represented; one does not see…in this
time where the press is still beginning, a clear difference between political libelle and literary
work...”
73
And indeed, some mazarinades were quite literary. The famous playwright and
burlesque poet Paul Scarron, for example, authored pamphlets in burlesque verse, such as the
1651 Mazarinade, from which the term mazarinade comes. Many scholars, like Jean Serroy, see
a link between the quality of his literary works and his pamphlets: “the liberty of tone of
burlesque, the way it has of playing with the linguistic norm, the willingness that is manifests to
abolish all preeminence and to eliminate the barriers that define genres and styles: all that is not
only the frondeur spirit…it is the letter, the word.”
74
Mazarinades could also offer serious
political commentary. Claude Joly, for example, wrote the treatise Recueil de maximes véritables
et importante pour l’institution du roi in which he proposed a series of reforms that “harked back
to the Renaissance monarchy in the spirit of such neglected writers as Balzac, revived the
constitutional ideas of Claude Seyssel, and urged the sovereign to eschew Italian, Machiavellian
politics, to seek good ministers, and not overtax the people.”
75
While some authors were known,
over 80% of the pamphlets were anonymous.
76
As with anonymous printers, this was largely due

70
Ibid., 181-182.
71
Herbert H. Rowen, The King’s State: Proprietary Dynasticism in Early Modern France (New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980), 68.
72
Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 295.
73
Ibid., 294. “Tous les genres littéraires, tous les types d’expression, toutes les sortes de style, du trivial au
sublime, y sont représentés ; on ne conçoit pas…dans ce temps où la presse en est encore à ses débuts, de différence
bien nette entre le libelle politique et l’oeuvre littéraire…”
74
Jean Serroy, “Scarron, le burlesque et le Fronde,” from La Fronde en Questions: Actes du dix-huitieme
colloque du centre meridional de rencontres sur le XVIIeme siècle, edited by Roger Duchêne and Pierre Ronzeaud
(Provence: Université de Provence, 1989), 151. “La liberté de ton du burlesque, cette façon qu’il a de jouer avec la
norme linguistique, la volonté qu’il manifeste d’abolir toute prééminence et de mettre à mal les barrières qui
délimitent les genres et les styles : tout cela est non seulement l’esprit frondeur…ma ça en est la lettre, le mot.”
75
Treasure, 182.
76
Carrier, Les hommes du livre, 79.
17

to fear of future punishment. Carrier suggests three additional reasons for anonymity: literary
tradition at the time valued mystery surrounding authorship; it was in fact socially dishonorable
and embarrassing for higher class citizens to sell their writing, especially in pamphlet form; and
the name of a high ranking official like Cardinal Retz on a pamphlet might lessen its political
effect.
77
With so many styles and forms, these libelles were a highly versatile and adaptable
political tool that effectively reached and motivated a wide audience during the Fronde.
Printed mazarinades had one main drawback, however: they could not easily reach the
illiterate. Although Carrier downplays this limitation by suggesting that the majority of Parisians
could read,
78
more recent research calls that assumption into question. Sawyer, for instance, cites
a survey of signatures found on marriage licenses from 1690, which he says is the earliest
information available on the literacy of the French. It suggests that less than 25% of men and
10% of women were truly literate.
79
While this number may have been higher in urban areas like
Paris, he argues that most still would not have been able to read more than simple religious or
practical texts. One solution to this was to read mazarinades out loud:
Official publications were read aloud by town criers, and the content of pamphlets must have also been
passed along in oral readings. In a politically charged urban atmosphere, the contents of a newly arrived,
sensational pamphlet probably reached a broad cross-section of the population very quickly. The contents
of pamphlets certainly reached a larger and socially more diverse audience than the book-buying public.
80

Another was to print textless illustrations to be posted around the city, especially near the Pont-
Neuf. The third, which represented perhaps the most effective way for frondeurs to spread their
message to all quarters of Paris during the Fronde, was satirical political chanson.
Indeed, such popular songs were intended for the masses. Ferretti writes that “if writing
was the privilege of the elite, song touched the largest sectors of the population, and was
understood by the illiterate.”
81
Reportedly widespread, there are over 60 extant examples of
political chanson from the Fronde.
82
Typically, the chansons feature a newly written text to be
sung to an existing, well-known melody, called a timbre. As Conrad Laforte defines them,
timbres indicate “the first verse of a known vaudeville that one writes above a parody vaudeville

77
Ibid., 80.
78
Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 407.
79
Sawyer, 67.
80
Ibid., 69.
81
Ferretti, 48. “Si l’écrit était le privilège des élites, la chanson touchait les couches les plus larges de la
population, y compris les illettrés.”
82
Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 412.
18

in order to indicate on which air the latter must be sung.”
83
In this case, it is important to
distinguish early seventeenth-century vaudeville – which is simply the creation of new texts for
old, popular tunes – from late-seventeenth and eighteenth-century vaudeville, which began to
incorporate comedic theater with song.
84
In the mazarinades, as in most vaudevilles, the melody
was not notated; rather, lyricists indicated the desired timbre with the incipit “sur l’air de…” [“to
the tune of…”]. They drew the existing melodies from a wide variety of sources. As Denis
Launay writes, “the melodies were borrowed, either from popular dances, courants or galliards,
or from liturgical Latin repertoire, like l’Alleluia des Barricades, which imitates the pascal
sequence O filii et filiae, or from noëls, like La Cour à Saint-Germain, which parodies a
Christmas song.”
85
As with the burlesque verses previously discussed, the political chansons
could be quite long and often contained many couplets. To help the singers, however, the sung
mazarinades typically adhered to the rhyme schemes and syllabification of their timbres. Further,
many even incorporated the well-known refrains from the original melodies.
Semi-professional and professional street-singers performed most of the mazarinade
chansons publicly for a sou.
86
In addition, they often carried printed song lyrics to sell to their
listeners, much like the colporteurs.
87
Robert Darnton offers a particularly colorful description of
such performers:
Accompanying themselves or accompanied by a partner with a fiddle, hurdy-gurdy, flute, or bagpipe, they
could be found everywhere in Paris. They normally took up fixed positions where they could display
themselves best to passers-by. To attract a crowd, they often wore loud clothes, including extravagant hats
made of paper or straw, and they produced louder music, competing for pennies on street corners, in
marketplaces, along the boulevards…they congregated in such numbers on and near the Pont Neuf that
their songs acquired the name of pont-neufs.
88

83
Conrad Laforte, Poetiques de la chanson traditionelle francaise (Sainte-foy: Les Presses de L’Universite
Laval, 1993), 131. “Premier vers d’un vaudeville connu, qu’on ecrit au-dessus d’un vaudeville parodie pour
indiquer sur quel air ce dernier doit etre chante.”
84
Ibid., 136.
85
Denise Launay, “La Musique a Paris, malgré la Fronde,” from La Fronde en Questions: Actes du dix-
huitieme colloque du centre meridional de rencontres sur le XVIIeme siècle, edited by Roger Duchêne and Pierre
Ronzeaud (Provence: Université de Provence, 1989), 339. “Les melodies sont empruntées, soit aux danses à la
mode, courantes ou gaillardes, soit au répertoire liturgique latin, comme l’Alleluia des Barricades, imité de la
sequence pascale O filii et filiae, soit aux noels, comme La Cour à Saint-Germain, parodie d’un chant de Noël.”
86
Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 409.
87
Florence Gétreau, “Street Musicians of Paris: Evolution of an Image,” from Music in Art 23, no. 1/2
(Spring-Fall, 1998), 64.
88
Robert Darnton, Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century France
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), 85.
19

While most of the specific mazarinade singers remain unknown, there is a clear representative
model: Le Savoyard (see Figure 1.1). Self-described as the “Orpheus of the Pont-
Neuf,”
89
Carrier refers to him as the most celebrated of the professional Pont-Neuf singers.
90

Claude Duneton, in his extensive two-volume study on the history of French chanson, offers a
Figure 1.1: Le Savoyard. Found in Gétreau, “Street Musicians of Paris,” 67.
great deal of information on the notable street musician. Also known as Philippot, the blind man
wrote his texts, potentially composed his own tunes, sang them, and lived off the money he
earned doing so.
91
Supposedly born around 1610 and already famous in Paris during the 1630s,
his first collection of songs was published in 1645.
92
While Le Savoyard reportedly had a
beautiful voice, Duneton notes that it was likely his physicality that made him so popular;
indeed, he was known, as many pont-neuf singers were, for the obscene gestures that

89
Le Savoyard, “Air nouveau du Savoyard,” from Recueil nouveau des chansons du Savoyard, par luy seul
chantées dans Paris (Paris: Jean Promé, 1665), 113.
90
Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 410.
91
Claude Duneton, Histoire de la chanson française: des origines à 1780 (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1998),
531.
92
Ibid., 533.
20

accompanied his satirical, and often erotic, songs.
93
While no mazarinade from the Fronde can
be attributed to him specifically – “it is one thing to write the songs…and another to proclaim
them himself on the bridges!”
94
– he certainly represented the type of professional street-singer
that would have performed the mazarinades in Paris.
While they contained similar themes to their printed libelle counterparts, sung
mazarinades were quite different in tone. In general, they tended to fall into what Carrier calls
the popular style. As such, they used popular language, focused on the preoccupations of the
common people (like provisions in the market during Condé’s blockade of Paris and rising bread
prices), and featured a great deal of superstitious and supernatural ideas, like ghosts and
demons.
95
This, in addition to the oral nature of song, made these mazarinades that much more
relevant for the lower classes that they were designed to reach. More important than that, though,
sung mazarinades tended to be a great deal more violent and seditious. This is logical as the goal
of the chansons for the frondeurs was to rile up the lower class citizens and motivate them to
fight for Parlement against Mazarin; thus, they were often even more disrespectful and irreverent
towards the government. As Carrier argues, “they did not simply replace the libelles on each
street corner: they popularized them in a way and contributed to their penetration into places that,
without them, would have remained closed.”
96
Contemporaries also understood the particularly
subversive nature of the chansons. For example, in a letter to Mazarin, Gabriel Naudé, the
custodian of the cardinal’s 40,000-volume library, wrote: “…not a week goes by that on each
Wednesday and Saturday there are not foul and shameful songs publicly sung all over the
squares and crossroads against you; and those from yesterday were even more seditious than the
ones before.”
97

By all accounts, the sung mazarinades were effective as both sources of news and in
prompting political action, and they remained popular throughout the Fronde. In an excerpt from
La Muze historique, for example, Jean Loret writes:
On the Pont-Neuf, it is otherwise,
And these bards ordinarily

93
Ibid., 543.
94
Ibid., 541. “C’est une chose que d’écrire des chansons…et une autre affaire de les clamer soi-même sur
les ponts!”
95
Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 398-399.
96
Ibid., 413.
97
Quoted in Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 410. “…il ne s’est passée semaine qu’il n’y ayt eu tous les
mercredys et samedis des chansons vilaines et honteuses chantées publiquement par touttes les places et carrefours
contre elle ; et celle de hyer estoit encor plus seditieuse que touttes les precedentes.”
21

Sing all night and morning
Of the defeat of Mazarin,
Not passing a single week
Without shouting a dozen of them.
98

For contemporaries, the songs were the most effective means of spreading news of events around
the city in order to spur action. Duneton, for instance, argues that the 1648 song that detailed
events of the Day of Barricades on August 26, L’Alleluia des barricades, was able to
immediately spread news of the event around Paris.
99
This likely contributed to the large crowds
that reportedly gathered to protest Broussel’s arrest. Darnton reinforces this idea of efficacy,
writing that “a clever verse to a catchy tune spread through the streets with unstoppable force,
and new verses followed it, carried from one neighborhood to another like gusts of wind. In a
semiliterate society, songs functioned to a certain extent as newspapers. They provided a running
commentary on current events.”
100
Finally, Nicholas Hammond argues that such publicly sung
chansons, with their emphasis on character assassination and scandal, allow modern historians to
“come as close as possible to experience gossip as it was lived on the streets at that time.”
101

The sung mazarinades heard all over Paris were a provocative and important aspect of
the pamphlet wars waged during the Fronde. The Recueil général de toutes les chansons
mazarinistes. Et avec plusieurs qui n’ont point estées chantées (to be referred to as the Recueil
général) is a pamphlet that brings together twenty-seven political chansons.
102
While certainly
not a complete collection as the title suggests, it is nonetheless an impressive source of
mazarinade chansons. The title page (Figure 1.2) indicates a publication date of 1649, but it is
possible to more precisely estimate the date based on the events that are, and are not, featured in
the collection. Because multiple songs describe the fall of Charanton, it had to be released after

98
Jean Loret, La Muze historiques, ou recueil des lettres en vers contenant les Nouvelles du temps, écrites
à son Altesse Madamoizelle de Longueville, volume 1 (Paris: P. Jannet, 1857), 225.
Sur le Pont-Neuf, c’est le contraire,
Et ses chantres, à l’ordinaire,
Chantent les soirs et les matins
Des défaites de Mazarins,
Ne se passant nulle semaine
Sans en crier une douzaine.
99
Duneton, 502.
100
Darnton, 79.
101
Nicholas Hammond, Gossip, Sexuality and Scandal in France (1610 – 1715) (New York: Peter Lang,
2011.
102
Recueil général de toutes les chansons mazarinistes. Et avec plusieurs qui n’ont point estées chantées
(Paris: 1649).
22

February 8. However, as there is no discussion of the conference of Rueil and the agreement
reached there between the royal council and Parlement, it likely came out prior to March 11.
Further, Duneton points out that there is no mention of the beheading of the English king Charles
I, news that reached Paris on February 19.
103
Thus, the collection was most likely printed in mid-
February, 1649, near the end of Condé’s blockade of Paris and the conclusion of the
parlementary Fronde.

Figure 1.2: Cover of the Recueil général.

The descriptor mazarinistes in the title indicates the tone of the collection: nearly all of
the chansons are anti-Mazarin. In this case, mazaraniste should not be confused with Scarron’s
1651 term mazarinade, which simply means a Fronde-era pamphlet, be it for or against the
infamous cardinal. The Recueil général is entirely anonymous, which is unsurprising given the
particularly seditious nature of the collection. The title page merely lists the city of publication as
Paris, omitting both the publisher’s name and address. Further, the printer does not attribute any
song to a particular writer; indeed, even the total number of lyricists is unknown, though it is

103
Duneton, 510.
23

surely more than one, as the writing styles vary greatly and the themes discussed are sometimes
contradictory between chansons. Further, the pamphlet itself seems to have been somewhat
hastily compiled, as it contains numerous typographical errors. This can be seen in “Chanson
nouvelle, sur la deliverance de Monsieur de Brousel, Conseiller du Roy en sa Cour de Parlement
de Paris,” where the printer continually changes the spelling of Broussel (see Figure 1.3). These

Figure 1.3: “Chanson nouvelle sur la delivrance de Monsieur de Brousel…” in the Recueil général, with multiple
spellings of “Broussel” shown.

errors, coupled with the lack of codified spellings in seventeenth-century French, can at times
make reading the pamphlet difficult. Nonetheless, given the number of pieces in the collection,
and the breadth of topics they cover, the Receuil général is an invaluable primary source that
helps elucidate important frondeur beliefs and clarifies the motivations and actions of Parisians,
Parlement, and aristocrats during the complicated crisis that was the parlementary Fronde.
24

Chapter 2
A Thematic Analysis of the Recueil général Lyrics

Sung mazarinades played two key roles during the Fronde: they acted as oral newspapers
and they represented an effort on the part of their writers to mobilize the Parisians for political
action. The songs in the Recueil général demonstrate this propaganda. More significantly, given
the nature of their publication, they provide a more overarching view of the parlementary Fronde
than any individually published chanson. Such examples, like the “Alleluia des barricades,”
usually followed events immediately. Thus, they have a limited scope of relevance, and can only
enlighten modern researchers about short-term historical opinions regarding events or people.
The Recueil général, however, is not bound by this limitation. Rather than immediately
following and commenting upon one specific event, its printer compiled political chansons from
throughout the crisis. This means that certain pieces within the pamphlet were months removed
from their original contexts, a distinction that has two key advantages. The first is that it allows
one to draw broader and longer-lasting conclusions about frondeur attitudes towards individuals
and the state of France from a single pamphlet. In other words, the Recueil général acts as a
veritable microcosm of the larger mazarinade corpus, allowing comparisons to be made between
different songs within the same collection rather than needing to look to a series of individually
published libelles. The second advantage is that a contemporary of the uprising actually
compiled – and thus curated – the collection. Based on the tenor and subject matter of the
chansons selected for printing, conclusions can be drawn about what the compiler himself
considered to be important during the parlementary Fronde. In essence, rather than examining
each song as an isolated and individual work, a thematic literary analysis of the collection as a
whole – that is, an analysis of the most discussed elements in the Recueil général – sheds
considerable light on the most important and consistently relevant people, events, and opinions
as seen from the perspective of a contemporary printer and his Parisian audience.
Mazarin, the infamous cardinal, is the most discussed person in the collection; his name
appears, in one fashion or another, in twenty of the twenty-seven chansons.
104
Using formulaic

104
Chansons 1, 2, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27. For this, and all
subsequent Recueil général song references, see Appendix 1; the songs are listed in order on the first page of the
appendix with their corresponding page numbers.
25

language across many of the songs, the lyricists cast Mazarin as the overall cause of suffering in
France. Indeed, in ten chansons, they state that he “ruined” France and its cities.
105
Among those,
both “La chasse donnée à Mazarin” and “Chanson nouvelle de Jules Mazarin” specifically
characterize him as the “author of woe.” Other songwriters define Mazarin’s victims more
specifically. In “Histoire veritable d’un malheureux Monopoleur,” for example, he “ruined all
the poor men of the villages.” The chanson “La Menace du très-fidelle peuple de Paris,”
however, mentions that he specifically “mocked” Paris. While these songs speak of his general
complicity in France’s sorry state – and indeed, portray him as someone who had already
successfully ruined France, the villages, and Paris – three other songs depict the cardinal as
attempting to destroy the state. The courrier character in “Le Grand Courrier General,” for
instance, says that he “must start by speaking about the cardinal who wants to ruin France.” This
accusation carries with it an even more malevolent connotation than those made previously, as
such songs charge Mazarin with actively seeking to destroy the state.
The lyricists use several strategies to assassinate Mazarin’s character and cast him in a
villainous light. The simplest and most widespread, appearing in all twenty songs with the
cardinal, is to consistently attach negative adjectives to his name. Most commonly, these
highlight his greed, perfidiousness, cruelty, and tyranny. In order to further emphasize this last
character flaw specifically, several chansons associate Mazarin with former over-bearing and
unpopular premier ministres. In “Chanson nouvelle de Jules Mazarin, dit je suis l’Arman,” for
example, much of the song is founded on the concept that Mazarin is the new Richelieu, a
popular villain at the time. As Treasure writes, when Richelieu died in 1643, “news of his death
was greeted with bonfires…his ministry was associated with higher taxes, repression where there
had been revolt, and the dreaded billeting of troops: all the effect of war, generally seen as his
war. For the next 200 years, the prevailing view continued to be hostile.”
106
This song taps into
that enduring hostility by drawing parallels between the two hated premier ministers, both of
whom instituted high taxes for the lower classes and prolonged an increasingly unpopular war
with Spain. Further emphasizing Mazarin’s taxes, the lyricist also links him to Bullion,
Richelieu’s widely-detested surintendant, a “fiscal terrorist” who violently forced towns to pay

105
Chansons 2, 7, 10, 11, 12, 15, 20, 21, 23, and 27
106
Geoffrey Treasure, Richelieu and Mazarin (New York: Routledge, 1998), 84.
26

loans to the government to fund the war with Spain in 1636.
107
An association with Bullion was
also made in “Le preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron, pour recevoir Mazarin, dans ses
Enfers.” Similarly, two chansons link Mazarin to the Marquis d’Ancre, also known as Concino
Concini, who served as premier ministre for Louis XIII from 1610 to 1617.
108
Generally reviled
by both the nobility and the people, he was brutally assassinated in Paris in 1617. As he
remained unpopular even during the Fronde, thirty years after his death, linking Mazarin to him
was a strong criticism indeed. The association between them can also be seen outside of the
chansons, as the Italian-born Concini actually inspired the 1617 parlementary ban on foreign
ministers that the magistrates reinstated in January, 1649 against Mazarin.
Many of the Recueil général lyricists deliberately tapped into the xenophobic nature of
their Parisian audience in order to mobilize them against the Italian-born Mazarin. In “La
ménace du tres-fidelle peuple de Paris,” for example, the poet writes that the cardinal should
return to Italy, “the unfortunate place” of his birth. In the same chanson, he is also referred to as
the “poor Italian” and counseled to “return to Rome.” This anti-Italian strategy is more pointed in
“Supplication a monsieur le Prince de quitter le party Mazariniste,” in which the author not only
links Mazarin to his native Italy, but also characterizes him as a dangerous, wild beast due to that
heritage, calling him a “monster from Italy” and a “Roman tiger.” Similarly, the lyricist of
“Chanson nouvelle de Jules Mazarin, dit je suis Arman” uses Mazarin’s foreign birth to convince
Gaston to join the frondeur cause: “Alas Prince, what are you doing? A Cardinal makes war
against you and you hold on to another Arman from a foreign land…” The lyricist also
effectively illustrates the dangers of Italian rule for the French by writing that if one speaks of
the cardinal, “it is about nothing but his tyranny, hunting many Frenchmen, this Arman, native of
Italy.” Interestingly, in this chanson, the author claims that Mazarin was born in Sicily, rather
than Rome. While it is possible that this references Mazarin’s family’s aristocratic ties to Sicily,
the lyricist may also have been attempting to link Mazarin more closely with Spain as well,
which controlled Sicily at the time. Given France’s involvement in a costly and devastating war
with Spain, the implication of such a connection would certainly be a powerful statement.
This anti-Italian rhetoric directed towards Mazarin had consequences for Italians living in
Paris during the Fronde. One chanson, “Arrest de la Cour de Parlement,” for example, not only

107
Treasure, Richelieu and Mazarin, 25.
108
Chansons 1 and 2.
27

calls for Mazarin’s exile, but for the expulsion of all Italians from Paris. And indeed, many
Italians were forced to flee Paris, or they risked being arrested.
109
The anti-Italianism of the
Recueil général chansons also had a great deal of historical precedent. During the Wars of
Religion (1562 – 1598), for example, French writers and political theorists published numerous
xenophobic writings in response to the growing Italian influence in the French court under the
regency of Catherine de’ Medici. In one example, the 1579 Discours sur le moyen de bien
gouverner...contre Nicolas Machiavel Florentin [Discourse on the method of good
governance...against the Florentine Niccolò Machiavelli], Innocent Gentillet writes:
Sir, it is my purpose to bring to light these discourses against Machiavelli, to reveal to French men an
understanding of the source and authors of the tyranny that has been exerted in France for over fifteen years
by those who have so much abused the youth and naïve kindness of the kings.
110

With its reference to Italian tyranny over a young king especially, this work bears striking
resemblance to the mazarinades composed sixty years later. The popularity of such treatises
during the Wars of Religion led to a distinct, pervasive Italian stereotype in France. Henry
Heller, whose book details anti-Italianism in sixteenth-century France, argues that, “in these
works, the failings of the Italians reduced themselves to dissimulation, deceit, servility, impiety,
and cruelty.”
111
These attitudes continued into the seventeenth century, prompting the 1617
assassination of Concini and the Parisian parlement’s edict against foreign-born ministers
previously discussed. The xenophobic fear of the return of a new Concini figure in the form of
Mazarin ran rampant during the Fronde. Ranum writes, for instance:
…someone found a copy of Concini’s death sentence for treason, had it reprinted, and glued it to walls
throughout the city, openly suggesting that Cardinal Mazarin deserved the same fate. Another Italian had
somehow captured control of the council.
112

Even Mazarin’s predecessor, Cardinal Richelieu, engaged in an anti-Italian campaign,
particularly in regard to Italian cultural hegemony in France. Marc Fumaroli asserts that “Louis
XIII's Cardinal Minister wished for nothing more, except for political and military victory over

109
For instance, Giacomo Torelli, the famous Italian set designer, was arrested due to anti-Italian fervor
during the Fronde. He was invited to Paris to stage Italian operas for Mazarin and the court.
110
Innocent Gentillet, “Preface,” Discours sur le moyen de bien gouverner...contre Nicolas Machiavel
Florentin (Paris, 1579) “Monseigneur, estant sur le point d'exposer en lumiere ces Discours contre Machiavel, pour
descouvrir aux gens d'entendement de nostre nation Françoise la source & les autheurs de la tyrannie qui est exercee
en France depuis quinze ans & plus, par ceux qui ont trop abusé tant de la minorité que de la bonté naïfve des Rois
111
Henry Heller, Anti-Italianism in Sixteenth-Century France (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2003), 179.
112
Ranum, The Fronde, 114.
28

Madrid, than to make Paris – over Florence and even Rome – the religious, diplomatic, and
artistic capital of Catholic Europe.”
113
He began, in other words, a cultural war against Italy by
promoting French arts, literature, and theatre over what came to be seen as “useless and morally
dangerous” Italian diversions, like commedia dell’arte.
114
Given the pervasive anti-Italianism of
the decades leading up to the Fronde, it is unsurprising that the songs compiled so consistently
level xenophobic attacks against the Italian premier ministre. Further, the regularity of such
criticisms across the collection suggests that such opinions were not only widespread, but that
they must have been an effective way for songwriters to appeal to the Parisian masses.
Similarly, several chansons attack Mazarin’s supposed low-class lineage.
115
For example,
“La Libera de Jules Mazarin” portrays the cardinal as an upstart who only achieved power
through cruelty and oppression:
One knows all your genealogy,
You are the son of a simple merchant:
You are by your very nature nasty,
Elevated by your tyranny.

“La harangue du Peuple aux Generaux” echoes this, calling him a “porter,” or a pack-bearing
servant, in the first stanza. His base birth is also implied in the “Air du temps,” where the lyricist,
rather than calling him a merchant’s son or servant, actually likens him to a mule and a horse,
common farm animals. Similarly, “La chasse donnée à Mazarin,” also characterizes him as a
common animal, in this case a bird that must be hunted.
Mazarin’s Italian and base heritage aside, many of the chansons in the Recueil général
associate him with demons and the devil. Such supernatural accusations appear in eleven of the
twenty songs that mention him.
116
Some songs, like the “Chanson nouvelle de Jules Mazarin,”
simply describe him as a demon: “Grand Duc [Gaston d’Orléans],/ show yourself without equal,/
First Protector of France,/ Hunting this demon of the council…” In the “Chanson nouvelle, Sur
la declaration de nos Princes et Generaux,” the people call him an “infernal demon.” Others go
further and show a more personal relationship between the cardinal and the devil. For instance,
the lyricist of “Arrest de la cour de Parlement” writes that the devil, no longer able to support
Mazarin, can take him away. Similarly, “Le Libera de Jules Mazarin,” refers to him as the

113
Marc Fumaroli, “Richelieu, Patron of the Arts,” Richelieu: Art and Power, ed. Hilliard T Godfarb
(Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2002), 17.
114
Anthony Levi, Louis XIV (New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2004), 86.
115
Contrary to the mazarinades, Mazarin was a nobleman.
116
Chansons 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 15, 17, 23, 26, and 27.
29

“instrument of the devil,” and “La menace du tres-fidelle peuple de Paris” accuses him of being
successfully tempted by the devil. This idea is expanded in “L’adieu de Jules Mazarin,” in which
the cardinal expresses his eagerness to join Lucifer in hell, where he will feast with the imps. In a
few songs, Mazarin’s relationship with Satan – and the gruesome punishments he will endure in
hell – serve as a cornerstone of the chanson. In “Les qu’en dira-t’on des Monopoleurs,” for
instance, the author claims that the devil will prepare a beautiful reception for Mazarin (where he
will be beaten by kitchen boys), and that Judas, Cain, Barabas, Pilate, and Nero – with whom
Mazarin and his cohorts share many similarities – will welcome them as companions. “Le
preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron,” sung to the same tune as the one just described,
presents a similar fate for Mazarin. When Parlement has him killed for treason, he will go to hell
to serve as Lucifer’s post boy. Lucifer has the streets swept clean and arms his demons to the
teeth in anticipation of the cardinal’s arrival. Charon, Hades’s ferryman who eagerly awaits
Mazarin’s arrival, will give him Proserpine as a wife. In the final song of the Recueil général,
Mazarin gives himself to the devil as he dies. As punishment for such a blasphemous crime, the
lyricist illustrates his violent punishment:
Having put this miserable one in earth,
Numerous times, a frightening voice
Cried, ‘you do not need to pray for me,
I am damned for eternity.

‘In hell, along with the infidels,
I must burn in the eternal flames
For having made the innocent languish,
I am deprived of the all-powerful Savior.’

Immediately after, he was exhumed by Devils,
Having power over this abominable one,
They ripped his body into pieces,
Not leaving any flesh on the bones.

By invoking demons and the devil in these ten chansons, the lyricists appealed directly to the
lower-class public. In fact, Carrier argues that superstitious imagery was a hallmark of the
popular style designed to reach the masses. When mazarinades, such as these chansons, take
Mazarin for a devil who is capable of extraordinary tricks, they were tapping into “popular
psychology.”
117
This supernatural and demonic portrayal – combined with his characterization as

117
Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 399.
30

foreign, lower-class tyrant – effectively casts Mazarin as a villain and justified the Parisians’
violent and seditious actions during the parlementary Fronde.
The chansons were not limited to general critiques and insults, however; some address
more concrete crimes. Three in particular appear throughout the Recueil général: Mazarin
kidnapped the king, he was culpable for the deaths of Clanleu and Chastillon at Charanton, and
he was a thief. As mentioned in Chapter 1, on January 5, 1649, the royal court – including Louis
XIV, Anne, and Mazarin – relocated to Saint-Germain-en-laye in order to escape the
increasingly hostile environment in Paris. Five of the songs in the Recueil général reference that
move, using it to accuse the cardinal of kidnapping the king.
118
In “Supplication a monsieur le
Prince,” Mazarin shares the blame with Anne and Gaston. The author asks Anne why she took
the prayed-for king away from Paris and accuses Gaston of protecting the abductor, Mazarin.
The other four, however, hold the cardinal solely responsible. Each mentions that the abduction
occurred by night, making the crime appear all the more nefarious. The lyricist of “L’adieu de
Mazarin à la France” highlights the consequences of the kidnapping for the Parisians, asserting
that, by taking the king out of Paris, Mazarin deprived them of their support. The chanson
implies that the young king sympathized with the frondeur cause and was denied the opportunity
to help because the traitor Mazarin took him away.
The songs in the Recueil général use the February 8, 1649 loss of Charanton to further
attack the cardinal. Indeed, they focus less on the strategic implications of the frondeur defeat
and more on the deaths of Clanleu and Chastillon. Casting the men as heroes and martyrs whose
loss was tragic and unnecessary, the chansons hold Mazarin responsible. This strategy is peculiar
for Chastillon because he fought with Condé against the frondeur garrison. Indeed Duneton, who
writes briefly about the Recueil général, argues that “the libellistes-chansonniers, without doubt
bankrolled by Parlement, blamed the death of M. de Châtillon on the one truly responsible for
the conflict: Mazarin…one spoke of his death, his wife, and even the appearance of his ghost to
the prince de Condé to proclaim the responsibility and villainy of the cardinal in the whole affair
[Charanton].”
119

118
Chansons 1, 10, 13, 15, and 20.
119
Duneton, 512. “…les libellistes-chansonniers, à solde du Parlement sans doute, firent porter la mort de
M. de Châtillon au compte du vrai responsible de la zizanie: Mazarin. On fit parler le mort, sa femme, et même
apparaître son fantôme au prince du Condé pour clamer la responsabilité et le vilenie du cardinal dans toute cette
affiare.”
31

While the lyricists criticize Mazarin’s supposed abduction of Louis XIV and his military
efforts at Charanton with some frequency in the Recueil général, his financial policies receive
the most attention. In fact, twelve of the songs accuse the cardinal of theft.
120
The first song in
the collection, “Arrest de la cour de Parlement,” contains a stanza that typifies the common
complaint:
He took gold and silver
In significant sums
To make himself rich and powerful
In the city of Rome,
There, constructing palaces,
He enriched himself forever.

Numerous chansons reflect this. One accuses Mazarin of taking all the people’s Louys to send
back to Italy;
121
in another, the lyricist charges him with sending all their pistoles, ecus d’or,
quadruples, and Louys d’or out of France.
122
Likewise, the “Chanson nouvelle de Jules Mazarin”
claims that “eighty mules laden with gold have already reached his [Mazarin’s] province.”
Evidence exists that Mazarin himself was aware of – and unsettled by – the financial accusations
in such mazarinades. In his memoire, for example, he complained, “I have no posts, no
governorships, no duchies…they claim that I have amassed treasures…and attack me as a
foreigner…”
123
While such rumors may have troubled him, however, the complaints in these
chansons were accurate, as Mazarin was quite wealthy by the outbreak of the Fronde. Treasure
writes:
His wealth was highly visible as Italian sculptors and painters worked on the hôtel Chevry-Tubeuf, in the
rue Neuve des Petits Champs, opposite the walls of the Palais-Royal…he still saw his Palais Mazarin,
(which today appropriately houses the Bibliothèque Nationale which has grown around the core of his
original library), in Motteville’s words, as a retreat “where he was sometimes able to relax in the midst of
the wonderful objects he had accumulated”…
124

Regardless, the sheer number of references to Mazarin’s theft in the Recueil général demonstrate
the songwriters’ and the compiler’s preoccupation with the underlying financial problems faced
by the French during the Fronde.
Other chansons in the collection qualify the accusation of theft and specifically address
the cardinal’s onerous tax policies. This is best seen in “La chasse donnée à Mazarin,” in which a

120
Chansons 1, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 20, 23, 25, and 27.
121
Chanson 7, “Air du temps.”
122
Chanson 11, “Le Libera de Jules Mazarin, ce meschant perfide Ministre d’Estat.”
123
Quoted in Sonnino, 163.
124
Treasure, Mazarin, 119.
32

group of French villagers list the possessions that Mazarin forced them sell in order to pay his
taxes, including their land, kitchen supplies, beds, plows, and livestock. The exchange speaks to
the devastation of the country due to the taille, and is reminiscent of Ranum’s claim that many
Frenchmen were forced to sell all of their assets in order to pay their taxes.
125
Indeed, the
frequency of these complaints suggest that the fundamental cause of the Fronde was financial.
The public’s frustration with ever-increasing taxes used to fund a seemingly never-ending war
with Spain spurred the popular uprising. The lyricists of these songs – and the compiler who
printed them in one group – sought to document that financial distress and tap into public anger,
directing it towards a single, tangible scapegoat. Drumming up hatred in such a manner, the
chansons in the Recueil général can clearly be seen as influencers of popular opinion, sustaining
the support of the people for the parlementary Fronde.
Finally, after making Mazarin a scapegoat, the songs collected in the Recueil général
almost universally promote violence as a way to rectify the problem. Some merely issue an
ultimatum, using the threat of violence to encourage him to leave France. “Arrest de la cour de
Parlement,” for instance, gives the cardinal eight days to leave France – adhering to Parlement’s
January 8, 1649 edict – before detailing the violent punishments that will befall him should he
fail to leave: “everyone would rip apart his body, and others his head, the Marquis d’Ancre
[Concini] was never so well treated as him.” The next song in the collection, “La menace du tres-
fidelle peuple de Paris,” adopts a similar strategy and warns Mazarin to return to Italy or risk
being killed. Like the first example, the lyricist in this chanson also references Concini’s
assassination: “If ever you return to Paris, we will do to you as we did to the Marquis d’Ancre.”
In one example, in lieu of issuing a warning to Mazarin, the lyricist encourages Parisians to act
quickly to kill the “detestable monster” before he departs.
126
Other chansons make no reference
to Mazarin’s exile, and instead simply describe – often in gleeful detail – the violent things they
will do to him. In one, a group of villagers decides to hunt him down like an animal and lay him
in his tomb.
127
Another encourages Gaston and the Parisians to, again, hunt Mazarin down, and
throw his innards to the dogs, “so that he will not have a grave in France.”
128
“La harangue du
peuple aux generaux” offers a particularly graphic description of what the frondeur generals

125
Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism, 275.
126
Chanson 15, “L’adieu du Mazarin à la France.”
127
Chanson 10, “La chasse donnée à Mazarin.”
128
Chanson 12, “Chanson nouvelle de Jules Mazarin.”
33

should do to Mazarin. The lyricist suggests, amongst other things, that they throw him in a river,
stone him, and castrate him. Often, the punishments proposed are framed within a religious or
supernatural context. In “Les trahysons de Mazarin descouverte,” for instance, the lyricist,
writing in the cardinal’s own voice, outlines the inmanus and salve reginas that he must sing as
penance while being beaten and executed for his crimes. Others, as previously mentioned,
describe the ghastly punishments that await Mazarin in hell. The regularity of such violence
within the Recueil général supports Carrier’s assertion that sung mazarinades were particularly
seditious: “they [sung mazarinades] supported the people’s hatred of Mazarin and the
partisans…and they gave, perhaps more than printed pamphlets, the habit of disrespect and
insolence towards the government…”
129
The songs this Parisian printer presented to the public in
the Recueil général seek to justify and encourage the popular Fronde uprising by effectively
depicting Mazarin as a villain.
While so villainizing the cardinal, the head of the royal council, the songs paint an
altogether different picture of the future leader of France, Louis XIV. As the second-most-
commonly mentioned person, the young king appears in fourteen chansons, none of which
portray him negatively.
130
Indeed, five chansons praise the king’s character.
131
In one, the lyricist
calls him “good-natured.”
132
Another song lauds his wisdom, and a third, describes him as a
devout Christian king.
133
Even if the other chansons fail to praise his good qualities, they still do
not blame him for the Fronde or the financial ruin of France. Rather, they cast him as the
innocent victim of the evil Mazarin. The narrative of his previously-discussed abduction
certainly contributes to this sense. Others outright declare his innocence. For example, the
“Chanson nouvelle de Jules Mazarin” asserts that Parisians support their king, who is “innocent
of the wrongs” done to them.
More than mere sympathy, however, the chansons compiled consistently reinforce the
validity of the monarchy and the king’s right to rule. Five chansons contain the line “long live
the king” or offer prayers for Louis’ return to Paris.
134
Other songs make stronger statements in

129
Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 410. “…elles entretenaient le peuple dans la haine de Mazarin et des
partisans…et elles lui donnaient, plus encore peut-être que les libelles, l’habitude de l’irrespect et de l’insolence
envers le gouvernement…”
130
Chansons 1, 4, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, and 24.
131
Chansons 12, 13, 14, 18, and 24.
132
Chanson 12, “Chanson nouvelle, de Jules Mazarin, dit je suis l’Arman.”
133
Chansons 13 and 24 respectively.
134
Chansons 1, 4, 9, 12, and 24.
34

support of the monarchy. In the “Air du temps,” for example, the lyricist writes that Parisians
“do not breathe except to assure the king and live under his law.” “Chanson nouvelle de Jules
Mazarin” contains a similar message, stating: “above all we preserve our king…And that all do
as I do, To preserve his crown for him.” To further emphasize this point, several songs depict
frondeur heroes faithfully serving the king. For instance, the martyred Chastillon, in “Les Adieux
qu’à fait Monsieur de Chastillon,” remarks that his one regret in dying was no longer being able
to serve Louis XIV. Likewise, in “Les regrets de Madame de Chatillon,” his wife remarks that on
many occasions, Chastillon performed valiant acts for his king. By the same token, part of
Clanleu’s heroic backstory in “La vie et la mort de Monsieur de Clanleu” involves fighting for
his king in the Netherlands. Even the fictional peasant girl Jeanne in the “Chanson nouvelle sur
la genereuse resolution d’une fille” joins the frondeur army and vows to fight for her good king.
By consistently praising the king and glorifying those who faithfully serve him, these chansons
in the Recueil général confirm the legitimacy of the monarchy. And indeed, this support of the
king even during a devastating popular uprising was common throughout the Fronde, especially
in the mazarinades. As Rowen asserts, the vast majority of mazarinades – such as these
chansons – remained “within the boundaries of monarchical thought of a traditional kind.”
135

Although Louis XIV’s reputation remained unscathed in the Recueil général, his
relatives, the anti-Fronde princes of the blood, were not so lucky. The lyricists’ conception of
Gaston d’Orléans, who appears in three chansons, is at best ambiguous, and sometimes quite
negative.
136
In general, they seem to resent his siding with the royal council when he had initially
seemed sympathetic to the frondeur cause during the 1648 negotiations. “Suplication a monsieur
le Prince de quitter la party Mazarinistes” illustrates this point perfectly. The lyricist accuses
Gaston of protecting the king’s abductor and cautions him that, if he continues to share in the
profits of Mazarin’s robberies, he will share in his punishment as well. This appears to be an
attempt to encourage Gaston to switch allegiances. This is stated more directly in “Chanson
nouvelle de Jules Mazarin,” where much of the piece is founded on an attempt to enlist Gaston.
The author calls on the “good-natured” and “generous” prince to demonstrate his power and
protect the liberty of Parisians by making war against the demon Mazarin. The ninth couplet
contains an especially clear appeal:

135
Rowen, 68.
136
Chansons 12, 13, and 16
35

Gaston, the desperate people
Put their hopes in you
And all of a plaintive voice
Ask of you some allegiance,
Haro, haro defrock this Cardinal
Who will no longer harm us.

These songs, by appealing to his potential sympathies for the frondeur cause, show a familiarity
with his 1648 role as the intermediary between the royal council and Parlement. While
occasionally criticizing him, the larger message seen throughout the collection is a desire for him
to take up that pro-Fronde function yet again.
If the frondeur songwriters demonstrated some sympathy for Gaston, hoping to win his
support, they were overwhelmingly negative regarding Condé. They portray the royal general as
the second-most villainous person in the collection after Mazarin himself. In some songs, like the
aptly titled “Suplication a monsieur le Prince de quitter la party Mazarinistes,” the lyricists seek
to convince him to change his allegiances: “quit the Mazarine cause, Prince, for fear that his ruin
does not make you fall as well.” However, the chanson also harshly criticizes Condé’s role in the
Fronde. In a particularly strong statement of his culpability, the songwriter asserts that the Fleur
de Lys, the symbol of the Bourbon house to which Condé belonged, “droops with the blood of
innocents.” Details of the suffering he has caused are found in other songs as well. For example,
“La vie et la mort de Monsieur de Claneu” charges charges him with not only terrorizing the
inhabitants of Charanton, but leading the scoundrels and cowards who killed Clanleu in that
battle. In a similar vein, the song “Les Adieux qu’à fait Monsier de Chastillon avant de mourir”
makes it clear that Condé ordered Chastillon to fight at Charanton, even though he knew it to be
a mistake; he shares the blame with Mazarin for Chastillon’s tragic death. “L’aparaison de
l’esprit de Monsieur le Duc de Chatillon au Prince de Condé,” however, gives Condé sole
responsibility for Chastillon’s death. As another example of the supernatural elements that
appear in popular mazarinades, the song features the ghost of Chastillon who returns to earth to
condemn the general. Because of Condé’s crimes at Charanton and his allegiance to Mazarin and
the royal council, the spirit says:
You stain your name,
And make wrong that of Bourbon,
Montmorancy will be ashamed
To see his nephew
Take so shameful a party.

36

In addition to their condemnation of Mazarin, these texts use Clanleu and Chastillon to villainize
Condé, the general responsible for the blockade around Paris and the shortages resulting from it.
Due in part to chansons such as these and other libelles, Condé’s reputation suffered greatly
during the parlementary Fronde. Gibson argues that, following the April 1, 1649 Peace of Reuil,
Condé grew to resent Mazarin, “whom he considered to have ill repaid him for shouldering the
unpopularity of enforcing the Paris blockade.”
137
The villainous conception as laid out in the
songs of the Recueil général spread to the aristocracy as well during the princely Fronde, in
which Condé himself led the rebellion against the crown. For instance, Madame de Motteville
wrote in her memoire that she had “never known a soul so mundane, so vicious, nor a heart so
ungrateful as that of M. le Prince, nor so treacherous, nor so malicious…the recognized, out and
out bugger that he is…”
138
The Recueil général chansons, with their overt criticisms of the royal
general, contributed greatly to his unfavorable reputation in Paris and suggest that the compiler
himself viewed Condé negatively.
While the Recueil général vilifies anti-Fronde figures like Mazarin, Gaston d’Orléans,
and Condé – or at least attempts to sway their allegiances – it exalts Parlement, the main
frondeur institution. Indeed, seven chansons portray Parlement as a champion of the people, a
role,
139
as noted in Chapter 1, that many magistrates had sought to fill even before the Fronde.
For example, “La Chanson des barricades” refers to them as lords and fathers; and in “Les
regrets de Madame de Chatillon,” Chastillon’s wife begs forgiveness for her husband’s offenses
against this “great Parlement, which is the most important in France.” Often, songs link
Parlement to the monarchy, writing “long live Parlement” and “long live the king” in the same
stanza. This subtle association plays to the common parlementary Fronde theme that the
Parlement, unlike Mazarin and the royal council, were actually acting in the best interests of the
crown; the magistrates themselves held this conception and sought to convey it to the people. For
example, Mathieu Molé, the premier président of Parlement, was “a staunch royalist, determined

137
Gibson, 28.
138
Ibid., 87. Though the Recueil général does not specifically reference it, it is interesting to know that
rumors concerning Condé’s homosexuality were already circulating at the time of the Fronde: “Condé lent credence
to such accusations by surrounding himself with a circle of male favourites, the so-called ‘petits-maîtres’. His
triumph at the battle of Lens in August 1648 was offset by the rumour…about a captured Condéen officer being
released because Archduke Leopold wished to imply that the man was ‘too necessary to his [Condé’s] pleasures for
him to be detained any longer.” Gibson, 89. Indeed, according to Hammond, Condé was “renowned for his sexual
exploits with men and boys.” Hammond, 94.
139
Chansons 1, 4, 7, 9, 16, 17, and 21
37

to recall monarchy to a sense of responsibility for the public good.”
140
Additionally, magistrates
justified the Fronde by arguing that Anne and Mazarin, both foreigners, subverted French law
and put their own interests above those of the minor Louis XIV.
141
Parlement’s royalist
tendencies can be seen in the magistrates’ response to the execution of Charles I in England:
…they issued a letter of sympathy to Queen Henrietta Maria (who had remained at the Louvre when the
court had gone to Saint-Germain) and denounced the regicides as “wicked men who have violated
every…law and dipped murderous hands in the blood of that most just king”.
142

Often, songs in the Receuil général praise Parlement’s specific deeds. The first song in
the collection, “Arrest de la cour de Parlement,” details the sovereign court’s January 8, 1649
arrêt that ordered Mazarin to leave France. Similarly, the lyricist of the “Air du temps,” likely in
reference to this decree, postulates that Parlement, which had made laws against thievery, will
convict Mazarin and his tax collectors and send them to the gallows. Another chanson, “La vie et
la mort de Monsieur de Clanleu,” lauds the magistrates for listening to the people and freeing the
innocent Clanleu, who had been wrongly imprisoned by Mazarin, and appointing him governor
and protector of Charanton. Finally, “Le Grand Courrier General” references Parlement’s
interactions with the Archduke Leopold:
He summoned by letter
To our Parlement,
That with them, he wanted to put himself
In accommodation,
That it was his desire
To serve them

The chanson refers to February, 1649, when an envoy bearing a letter signed by Leopold went to
the “Paris Parelement with a proposal to negotiate, in Philip’s name, the peace between France
and Spain which Mazarin was accused of having jeopardized…[he] was ushered into Parlement
to present flattering offers of talks and troops.”
143
Further, the letter alleges that Mazarin had
offered peace with Spain in return for military help in crushing the frondeurs. It was, according
to Treasure, a trap because “negotiations with a foreign power were the prerogative of the
Monarch.”
144
Because of this, the magistrates refused to act as intermediaries and sent the letter
to Anne in Saint-Germain. Nevertheless, this set of chansons in the Recueil général demonstrates

140
Treasure, Richelieu and Mazarin, 61.
141
Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism, 283.
142
Treasure, Mazarin, 142.
143
Gibson, 24.
144
Treasure, Mazarin, 144.
38

that the compiler and his Parisian audience generally held Parlement in high regards and credited
them with taking steps to help ease the suffering of the people.
Four chansons characterize Broussel, the only named magistrate in the Recueil général,
as a popular hero.
145
The drinking song “Chanson d’un bon garçon,” for example, ends with a
toast to Broussel’s health, calling him “heaven blessed.” Further, the song effectively associates
the magistrate with the rest of Parlement and the monarchy by praising all three of them together.
This same strategy appears in “Chanson nouvelle sur la deliverance de Monsieur de Brousel,”
which wishes the magistrate good fortune and the king long life in the same stanza. Further,
rather than briefly mentioning him, this entire piece functions as a praise song for Broussel.
Throughout, the lyricist lauds his beautiful and eloquent speech, his paternal love for France, his
respectability, and his admirable counsel for the king. More than that, the author casts Broussel
as France’s savior:
It is not necessary to pass in silence
The deeds of Monsieur de Brousel,
Because by his great vigilance
And by his continual care,
He will make France thrive.
So that it will never again languish.

While offering a great deal of general praise, the only specific deed mentioned in the song was
his arrest on the Day of Barricades on August 26, 1648. This same event, in which Parisians
viewed Broussel as a martyr who was willing to suffer for their benefit, appears in two additional
songs. In “Les trahysons de Mazarin descouverte,” the arrest functions more as a way to
villainize Mazarin than to exalt the magistrate: “Was I not quite cruel to Monsieur de Broussel,
wanting, tyrannically, that he finish his life in prison?” In “La chanson des barricades de Paris,”
however, the author stresses Broussel’s role on that day. The song, which portrays a group of
saleswomen who drink and recount the Day of Barricades, paints a heroic image of the
magistrate, saying that he was necessary, and was arrested for supporting the people. His name –
and his sacrifices for the people on that day – serves as a popular call to arms; in the face of his
arrest, one saleswoman asserts, each person must do their part in order to secure his release.
Broussel remained a popular figure throughout the Fronde. In fact, even after the Recueil
général, frondeurs continued to use his arrest in an effort to inspire public anger and mobilize
them against Mazarin and the royal council, as they had on the Day of Barricades. In one

145
Chansons 4, 9, 20, and 24.
39

particularly dramatic event, frondeurs used Broussel’s arrest as a model and staged an attack on a
young magistrate in order to accuse Mazarin’s henchmen of attempting to kill revolutionaries.
146

Interestingly, there is one song that rejects the typical frondeur opinion and holds
Parlement responsible for the Fronde. The lyricist establishes this claim in the first stanza of the
“Air de Cour nouveau,” writing:
How you cause us torment
Angry Parlement,
Your decrees
Are enemies to all our interests,
The Carnival has lost all its charms,
Everyone is up in arms,
And Loves
Are scared off by the clamor of drums.

The chanson, which pits war against love, cries for peace and an end to frondeur-driven
hostilities. The author illustrates the devastation of war, arguing that it is the antithesis of games,
laughter, and song. In this unique chanson, the magistrates are portrayed as liars who subvert the
natural order and bring violence, poverty, and war to Paris. This is the only example, amongst all
twenty-seven chansons in the Recueil général, of royal council-driven counter-propaganda. As
such, it supports the idea that the anti-Fronde movement never mounted a truly effective or wide-
spread sung mazarinade campaign.
147
Afterall, this chanson aside, the majority of the Recueil
général adheres to frondeur ideologies and expresses support for Parlement.
The collection also praises the aristocratic frondeur generals. Of them, Beaufort is the
most popular military figure in the collection and appears in eight chansons.
148
“L’arivée de
Monsieur de Beaufort dans la ville de Paris,” for example, celebrates his decision to join the
frondeur cause. In it, Beaufort - who is characterized as valiant, bold, and magnanimous – is held
as the longed-for savior of Paris. The Recueil général consistently applauds his military prowess.
The lyricist of “Le Libera de Jules Mazarin” assumes that Beaufort will prevail over Mazarin and
put him “under the cold blade.” One chanson hold Beaufort up as a model for other princes to
imitate: “Is there but one Beaufort in France? Duke d’Orelans, what are you doing? Demonstrate
your power just a bit!”
149
In another, he serves as a model for Jeanne, the village girl turned

146
Ranum, The Fronde, 211.
147
Carrier, La conquête de l’opinion, 410.
148
Chansons 5, 11, 12, 14, 20, 21, 22, and 25.
149
Chanson 12, “Chanson nouvelle de Jules Mazarin.”
40

soldier.
150
Two chansons further mention Beaufort’s time in the château de Vincennes, where
Mazarin imprisoned him in 1643 because of his involvement in a failed assassination attempt on
the cardinal as a member of the cabale des importants.
151
His early opposition to the regency,
and Mazarin in particularly, legitimized his role as a military leader of the Fronde army and
made him a popular figure from the start. As Ranum writes, “…the flamboyant Duke de
Beaufort became a genuinely popular figure during the Parisian Fronde. He played to the
boisterous crowd, used scatological language about Mazarin in public, and took pride in his
ability to disperse angry and threatening mobs.”
152
Indeed, the frequency of Beaufort references
in the Recueil général – including a song entirely devoted to him – shows this popularity and
corroborates Treasure’s claim that, despite technically being outranked by Conti and d’Elbeuf,
Beaufort was the leader “in the people’s eyes.”
153

Despite Beaufort’s popularity, however, other aristocratic frondeur leaders appear in the
Recueil général. Three chansons extol the heroic exploits of noblemen like Conti, d’Elbeuf,
Longueville, and de la Mothe.
154
Each of these songs usually follows the same formula,
dedicating a few lines – or at most, a couplet – to each aristocrat. The language also tends
towards the formulaic, with words like valiant and brave used to describe each nobleman; this is
especially true in “Le Courrier de la Cour, rapportant toute les Nouvelles qui ce passe à present
dans Paris, & dans la Campagne,” which praises each aristocrat in a distinctly general manner.
However, in the other two chansons, the lyricists add a few specific details to differentiate some
of the leaders. The lyricist of “Le Grand Courrier General” rightly labels Conti as the
generalissimo and credits la Mothe and Beaufort with protecting the convoys that enter Paris.
Similarly, “La harangue du peuple aux Generaux” references la Mothe’s imprisonment due to his
military loss at Lleida in 1644. By and large, though, with the exception of Beaufort, the songs

150
Chanson 14, “Chanson nouvelle sur la genereuse resolution d’une Fille, qui veut mourir pour le service
du Roy & sa patrie, & comme elle prend les Armes à se sujet”:
Following the fertile path
Of the Great Duke of Beaufort,
She will pursue enemies
Where she will put them to death,
And they will flee like lost sheep.
151
Chansons 5 and 20.
152
Ranum, The Fronde, 315.
153
Treasure, Mazarin, 142.
154
Chansons 21, 22, and 25.
41

collected in the Recueil général simply list the noble frondeurs and offer them generalized
praise.
Finally, given that the songwriters sought to inform and sway the lower-class Parisians
and peasants, it is important to examine how the chansons portray those groups. The collection
most commonly characterizes them as innocent victims; indeed, this strategy appears in nineteen
songs.
155
Throughought the Recueil général, the people – the laborers, the merchants, and
villagers
156
– are reminded constantly of their Mazarin-caused poverty, the violence committed
against them by Condé, and the blockade-induced famine. “L’adieu de Mazarin à la France”
effectively demonstrates this victimization. In it, Mazarin sings:
I have, without and within,
Taken all the treasures
Of this poor France,
And reduced
The Parisians to ruin,
Making off with their goods.

The poor villagers,
Were reduced to ashes,
And in the misery,
Where they are now,
In their bitter sadness,
They will go on cursing me.

I wanted to starve the country,
And similarly ruin
Paris, the good city,
My disloyal plan
Proved incapable of
Executing this misery.

The reason for so consistently commenting on the misery of the people is clear: the frondeur
lyricists hoped to stir up anger against Mazarin and the royal council. By constantly invoking the
taille and tariffs, the costly war with Spain, and the violence committed against the villagers just
outside the city, they sought to encourage the continued support of Parisians during the blockade
and justify the armed uprising.
The vast majority of the chanons in the Recueil général demonstrate this effort to justify
the frondeurs’ actions and mobilize les peuples for military action. In some, as previously

155
Chansons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, and 27.
156
As defined in chanson 7, “Air du temps.”
42

mentioned, the lyricists seek to inspire public admiration for leaders like Beaufort
157
and
Broussel.
158
They applaud such men for fighting to ease the suffering of all Frenchmen:
It is not necessary to pass in silence
The deeds of Monsieur de Brousel,
Because by his great vigilance
And by his continual care,
He will make France thrive
So that it will never again languish.
159

The good deeds of the frondeur leaders, and how they helped the people, are threaded throughout
the collection and contribute to the narrative that Parlement and its noble allies were champions
of the people. More than that, however, the lyricists often encourage Parisians to take up arms
themselves and fight against those – namely Mazarin – who opporessed them. In fact, this
strategy of empowering the people appears in twelve chansons.
160
“L’adieu de Mazarin à la
France” explicity states such a call to arms:
You need weapons in hand
To kill this Mazarin,
This detestable monster,
With French courage,
And a very-loving heart,
Put his back against the wall.

This collection of twenty-seven chansons conveys the overall message that, while Mazarin and
his cronies have devastated France, the lower-class people not only have powerful allies like
Parlement, Broussel, and Beaufort, but they themselves can take up arms and rectify the
problem. In essence, if they join the frondeurs and fight, they can help make France great again.
This, ultimately, appears to be the main function of the Recueil général. The songs
villainize men like Mazarin and Condé in order to inspire the anger and hatred of their audiences.
While in some ways they functioned as oral news sources – spreading word about events like the
loss of Charanton, Archduke Leopold’s envoy, and Parlement’s January banishment of Mazarin
– the goal was clearly not to objectively report on events, but rather to convey and popularize the
frondeur agenda. In some ways, the Recueil général resembled other mazarinades of the time.
Indeed, with the chansons’ emphasis on character assassination, particularly in regard to
Mazarin, they prove Treasure’s argument that “the overwhelming impression they [mazarinades]

157
Clearly seen in chansons 5 and 11, for example.
158
Clearly seen in chansons 4, 9, and especially 24.
159
Chanson 24, “Chanson nouvelle, Sur la delivrance de Monsieur de Brousel, Conseiller du Roy en sa
Cour de Parlement.”
160
Chansons 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 23, 24, and 27.
43

leave is negative: they are strong in abuse, weak in argument…most pamphlets, ranging from
reasoned criticism to caricature and pornography, were intended to discredit the minister, secure
his removal and justify the position of whichever faction they represented.”
161
Treasure notes
that such attacks were quite successful in generating hate for anti-Fronde individuals:
his [Mazarin’s] qualities became his vices. He was handsome, so he was corrupting the queen-regent. He
was clever, so not to be trusted; he was polite, so necessarily hypocritical… “His name itself became an
insult” writes Mousnier. The Paris coachmen urged on their horses – “or Mazarin will get you!”
162

However, structurally, the Recueil général differentiates itself from other contemporary
mazarinades. The printer, by compiling twenty-seven songs from all points of the Fronde to the
point of publication, printed a comprehensive collection. In other words, as demonstrated in this
chapter, he ably stitched together a variety of existing songs – some attacking men like Mazarin
and others lauding men like Broussel and Beaufort – into a single, compelling pro-Fronde
narrative.

161
Treasure, Richelieu and Mazarin, 64.
162
Treasure, Mazarin, 119.
44

Chapter 3
The Melodies of the Recueil général

For this project, I have matched thirteen mazarinade chansons with their indicated
timbres.
163
Three historical collections – La Clef des chansonniers,
164
the Recueil d’airs notez,
165

and La Clé du caveau
166
– proved to be particularly valuable as melodic sources. In this chapter,
I will discuss the various strengths of each source, providing ideas on the performance of Recueil
général chansons. I will also consider other sources of both melodies and lyrics before
identifying areas for continued research.
The oldest main source of notated melodies considered, La Clef des chansonniers, ou
recueil des vaudevilles depuis cent ans et plus, contains four timbres for five of the Recueil
général chansons.
167
Jean-Baptiste Christophe Ballard compiled and published the two-volume
collection in 1717. He provides the melodies of three hundred popular tunes so that others could
give them new lyrics; it was, according to Marlène Belly, the first publication of its kind: “the
purpose of La Clef was nothing but a compilation, in the form of a collection, of airs that were in
vogue and/or anchored in constituent memory, for the lyricists, a veritable reserve of melodies
ready to receive new verses.”
168
In an avertissement written by Ballard, he indicated that the
intended purpose of the volume was to preserve the widely-known and loved parodies,
brunettes, and tendresses Bacchiques – genres that had already appeared in his popular 1704 and
1711 collections, Brunettes et petits airs tendres
169
– so that they would not be forgotten. And
indeed, the melodies he compiled were known; as he writes, “the idea of this collection is not to
give unknown airs; the name suggests the opposite, because with VAUDEVILLE it is

163
See Appendix 1 for the notated timbres of chansons 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 20, 24, and 26. I am the
first to notate the melodies for chansons 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 14, and 26.
164
Jean-Baptiste Christophe Ballard, La Clef des Chansonniers ou recueil des vaudevilles depuis cent ans
et plus, volumes 1 and 2 (Paris: Ballard, 1717).
165
Recueil d’air notez, volumes 1 and 2 (Paris), 243
166
Pierre Capelle, La Clé du caveau, à l’usage de tous les chansonniers française, des amateurs, auteurs,
acteurs du vaudeville & de tous les amis de la chanson (Paris: Richehomme, 1811).
167
Chansons 3, 9, 11, 20, and 26. Chansons 3 and 26 share the same timbre.
168
Marlène Belly, “Review of La Clef des Chansonniers (1717): Erweiterte kritische Neuausgabe,” from
Revue de Musiscologie 92, no. 2 (2006), 417. “Le principe même de La Clef n'est autre que celui d'une compilation,
sous forme de recueil, d'airs en vogue et/ou ancrés en mémoire constituant, pour les paroliers, une véritable réserve
de supports mélodiques prêts à recevoir de nouveaux vers…”
169
Duneton, 793.
45

understood that the airs are publicly widespread.”
170
While this was the first officially published
collection of notated timbres, Ballard was in fact responding to the already popular trend of
fixing new texts – of a comedic, political, or even religious nature – onto existing melodies. The
Recueil général is just one of many such examples. Ballard’s collection enjoyed great success,
and it is likely that its popularity spurred the creation of later collections of timbres, like the
Maurepas chansonnier and the Clé du caveau.
Ballard’s layout, which is identical for each of the three-hundred timbres in La Clef des
chansonniers, contains a wealth of information. He first provides the most known title or incipit
of the melody. For the sung mazarinades in the Recueil général, this is the timbre title indicated
by the phrase “sur l’air de…” Below that, Ballard supplies the monophonic melody with the text
underlay for the first couplet of the original text. Finally, he provides the lyrics for a second
couplet in verse form. In this study of the Recueil général, La Clef des chansonniers is highly
valuable. Not only does it contain four notated timbres, but the inclusion of the original lyrics
allows for a textual comparison of elements like rhyme scheme, syllable count, refrains – or a
lack thereof – and themes with the mazarinade lyrics. Further, Ballard’s text underlays shed
considerable light on how the mazarinade texts might have been set to music, significant
revelations for modern performers looking to sing such repertoire.
By and large, based on Ballard’s collection, the rhyme structures of the Recueil général
lyrics are consistent with the original lyrics of their corresponding timbres. In “Les qu’en dira-
t’on des Monopoleurs,” for example, they adhere exactly to the text of the timbre “Qu’en dira-
t’on?” The first couplets of each are:
Recueil général: “Les qu’en dira-t’on des
Monopoleurs”
La Clef des chansonniers: “Qu’en dira-t’on?”
171

Vous partisans engance trop maudite,
Chacun vous hait comme peste & poison,
Vous estes en fuitte
Mais nous dirons
Que si on vous prend comme des Larons
Qu’en dira-t’on ?

Vous avez tort de vous mettre en colère,
D’aller au bal sans colet ny gaudron:
Ma foy c’est faire
Trop de façon;
Quand vous iriez même sans cotillion;
Qu’en dira-t’on?

The structure ababbb is consistent for both. Likewise, the order of feminine (f) and masculine
(m) endings remains the same: fmfmmm. Such rhyme scheme consistency holds true for three of

170
Ballard, vol. 2, avertissement. “L’idée de ce Recüeil n’est pas de donner des Airs tout-à-fait inconnus ;
leur nom suppose le contraire, puisque le VAUDEVILLE ne s’entend que des Airs répandus dans le Public.”
171
Ballard, vol. 1, 20.
46

the remaining four Recueil général songs whose timbres are found in La Clef des
chansonniers.
172
Also using “Qu’en dira-t’on?” as its timbre, however, the mazarinade “Le
preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron, pour recevoir Mazarin, dans ses Enfers” alters the
rhyme pattern slightly. This can be seen in the first couplet:
Toy Mazarin qui veut troubler la France,
Par ton esprit diabolique & meschant,
Pour ton offence
Le Parlement,
On a predit de te faire mourir,
Pour te punir.

Though the rhyme structure in this case is ababcc instead of ababbb, the songwriter did maintain the
order of the feminine and masculine endings. This slight rhyme alteration holds true for all couplets in
the chanson. This inconsistency aside, however, the link between the rhyme schemes of the original
texts and the mazarinade texts suggests that the Recueil général songwriters were familiar with not only
the original melodies, but also the original lyrics, an observation made possible by the texts included in
Ballard’s collection.
Where the rhyme schemes are largely consistent, several of the Recueil général chansons
differentiate themselves from the Clef des chansonniers timbres’ lyrics by altering or dropping
their refrains. “Le preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron” shows this. In the text of the
original timbre, the last line “Qu’en dira-t’on” is repeated in each couplet and functions as a
refrain. While this refrain is maintained in “Les qu’en dira-t’on des Monopoleurs,” in “Le
preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron,” the songwriter drops the refrain, and the final line
of each stanza is different. Similarly, the song “Les trahysons de Mazarin descouverte” abandons
the refrain of its original timbre, “Lampons, lampons/Camarades, lampons.”
173
However, in this
instance, the lyricist hints at the refrain; in the penultimate line of each stanza, a two-syllable
word or phrase is repeated, just as in the original penultimate line.
174
Its first couplet, for
example, reads: “Deplus, deplus/Et aussi mon Inmanus.” This similarity suggests that the
mazarinade lyricist was familiar with the timbre’s text as well as its melody. In “Le Libera de
Jules Mazarin,” the songwriter elected to change the text of the refrain rather than abandon it:

172
Chansons 9, 11, 20
173
Ballard, vol. 1, 125.
174
Later in the course of the chanson, some of the words and phrases are three-syllables long instead of
two. However, even then, as in the refrain of the original timbre, the words and phrases repeat.
47

“Car si vous n’ête’ enfarinez/Vous n’aurez rien qu’un pied-de-nez”
175
became “Mazarin il te faut
chanter/Ton Libera me Domine.” While the words themselves are different, the lyricist kept the
masculine rhyme of each line from the original refrain. The remaining mazarinade, “La Chanson
des Barricades de Paris, composée par six Harangeres,” like “Les qu’en dira-t’on des
Monopoleurs,” uses the same refrain as its timbre, “Laire la, laire lan-laire,/Laire la, laire lan-la,”
though it alters the spellings.
176

While these relationships between the rhyme structures and refrains are noteworthy, it is
ultimately a comparison of syllable counts that has the most profound impact on modern singers
looking to perform the mazarinades from the Recueil général, as text underlay is one of the
biggest performance issues in this repertoire. And this can be tricky in these chansons because
the lyrics of only two of the five mazarinades – “Les qu’en dira-t’on des Monopoleurs” and “Le
Libera de Jules Mazarin, ce meschant perfide Ministre d’Estat” – perfectly match the syllable
counts of their timbres’ texts in the Clef des chansonniers. In the other three, however, there are
deviations. In “Le preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron” the differences are slight and
inconsistent; in the first line of the fifth stanza, for example, there are eleven syllable instead of
the original ten. In “Les trahysons de Mazarin descouverte,” however, the discrepancies are more
systematic. Where the timbre’s final line “Camarades lampons,” which is part of its refrain,
contains six syllables, each of the final lines of the mazarinades contain seven. The first stanza,
for example, ends with “Et aussi mon inmanus.” The mazarinade “La Chanson des Barricades de
Paris, composée par six Harangeres” has a similar systemic syllable discrepancy; the first line of
each stanza has seven syllables as opposed to the eight found in La Clef des chansonniers.
The text underlays provided by Ballard shows why such differences in syllable count
may be problematic for performances of the mazarinades. In essence, the underlays are syllabic,
and do not easily allow for the subtraction or addition of syllables seen in the three Recueil
général songs discussed. In cases with too few syllables, as in the first line of “La Chanson des
Barricades de Paris,” the most practical performance solution is to combine two notes in the
phrase to compensate. The following example demonstrates this:

175
Ballard, vol. 1, 30.
176
Ibid., 90. “Laire la, laire lan-laire/Laire la, laire lan-la” becomes “Lere-la, lere-lenlere,/ Lere-la, lere-
lenla.”

48

The ties indicate the now combined notes that originally had two syllables rather than one. This
is the method I adopt in Appendix 1. In instances where the syllable count of the mazarinade
exceeds that of the timbre, there are two solutions. The first is simply to subdivide longer notes,
creating the appropriate number in order to maintain a syllabic performance. This works well in
the final line of the first stanza of “Les trahysons de Mazarin descouverte,” for example, which
might have been performed as follows:

In this case, I made the descending eighth-notes in the penultimate measure syllabic, though they
were originally melismatic in the Clef des chansonniers. The second solution is to combine two,
or even three, syllables into one. According to Claude Duneton, this may actually be the more
authentic approach for street songs of the time. Writing about a sung mazarinade not found in
the Recueil général, he writes:
Certainly the importance attached to correct orthography at the time was significantly less that it would
become later, sometimes here the weak verses reveal a writing that directly reflects popular pronunciation:
‘Il ne dois pas prétendre’ does not have five feet unless one makes, as they regularly did, one syllable
disappear: il n’doit in two feet.
177

This strategy can be applied to the chansons of the Recueil général. The text underlay for the
same example above might also have been performed as such:

Following Duneton’s suggestion, this is the solution I adopt in Appendix 1; it allows me to
maintain the text underlay of the original timbre as it appears in Ballard’s collection, including
the small eighth-note melisma in the penultimate measure.

177
Duneton, 508. “Certes l’importance attachée à l’époque à l’orthographe correcte était bien moindre que
ce qu’elle devint par la suite, cependant ici des vers boiteux révèlent une écriture reflétant directement la
pronunciation populaire : Il ne dois pas prétendre » ne compte cinq pieds qu si l’on escamote, tout à fait
régulièrement d’ailleurs, une syllable: Il n’doit en deux pieds.”
49

Finally, Ballard’s La Clef des chansonniers, with its inclusion of two couplets of text, is
the only source of notated melodies considered in this study that makes it possible to compare
literary themes between the Recueil général chansons and their corresponding timbres. After all,
the question must be asked: did the anonymous mazarinade songwriters simply choose specific
timbres for their catchy melodies? Or, were they also concerned with the original lyrics as well?
Darnton, in his study on similar political chansons in eighteenth-century France, argues that they
were very much concerned with the earlier texts. As he writes, “when new words are sung to a
familiar tune, they convey associations that had been attached to earlier versions of it. Songs can
therefore operate, so to speak, as an aural palimpsest.”
178
In other words, if a timbre’s original
text carried a certain connotation, it could be used to reinforce the political message of a
mazarinade. For example, there are several notable links between “L’Air des enfarinez, ou des
Italiens”
179
and its corresponding mazarinade, “Le Libera de Jules Mazarin.” The original text
from La Clef des chansonniers is as follows:
Enfarinez bien vôtre tête,
Et le collet de vos manteaux:
Vous en serez cent fois plus beaux,
Et vous ferez plus de conquêtes;
Car si vous n’ête’ enfarinez,
Adieu l’amour de la coquette,
Car si vous n’ête’ enfarinez,
Vous n’aurez rien qu’un pied-de-nez.

Encor que le peuple murmure
Que vous faire’ encherir le pain;
Suivant vôtre amoureux dessein ,
Enfarinez bien vôtre hure;
Car n'étant point enfarinez ,
Adieu l'amour de la coquette,
Car n'étant point enfarinez
Vous n'aurez rien qu'un pied-de-nez.
Powder well your head,
And the neck of your coat:
You will be a hundred times more handsome,
And you will make more conquests;
Because if you are not powdered,
Goodbye coquettish love,
Because if you are not powdered,
You will have nothing but great shame.

Again the people murmur
That you raise the price of bread;
Following your amorous design,
Powder well your beastly head;
Because not being powdered,
Goodbye coquettish love,
Because not being powdered,
You will have nothing but great shame.

The original lyrics in La Clef des chansonniers describe a baker, a man of low birth; this is
reminiscent of the third stanza of the mazarinade, in which the songwriter characterizes Mazarin
as ‘the son of a simple merchant.’ In the second stanza of the timbre, the lyricist accuses the
baker of having a beastly head; in the mazarinade, Mazarin is described as a fox. Further, the
timbre mentions that the bread maker raised the price of bread, earning the ire of the people. In
the mazarinade, the songwriter complains multiple times that Mazarin took money from the

178
Darnton, 80.
179
Ballard, vol. 1, 30.
50

people, asserting that the Cardinal ‘stole our gold Louys,’ ‘sent our pistoles, gold ecus,/
quadrupels, and gold Louys from France,’ and ‘invented housing taxes.’ Even the alternate title
of the timbre, “L’air des italiens,” is significant, potentially reminding the xenophobic Parisian
listeners of the cardinal’s Italian heritage. Given these links, it seems reasonable to speculate that
by setting this specific tune, the mazarinade songwriter sought to strengthen the message that the
Italian-born Mazarin was nothing but a low-born man who caused famine and unfairly took
money from the people for his own gain.
Compiled around forty years after the Clef des chansonniers, the two volumes of the
Recueil d’airs notez contain nine of timbres indicated in the Recueil général. They form a part of
the longer Maurepas chansonnier,
180
a 35-volume private collection from the mid-eighteenth
century. Aside from the two volumes of the Recueil d’airs notez, the others include only song
lyrics – organized chronologically from 1355 to 1747 – with incipits, rather than notated
melodies; they bear resemblance to the Recueil général itself. And in fact, many of the songs
from the Recueil général appear in the text-only Maurepas chansonnier volume titled Recueil de
chansons, vaudevilles, sonnets, epigrammes, epitaphes, et autres vers satiriques & historiques,
avec des remarques curieuses depuis 1646 jusqu’en 1666. The Maurepas chansonnier was
compiled by two men, Pierre Clairambault (1651-1740) – who initially collected, annotated, and
organized some of the songs – and the compte de Maurepas, Jean-Frédéric Phelypeaux (1701-
1781), who later copied and supplemented the volumes.
181
This type of song collection, meant
for private use, was popular amongst wealthy Parisians. As Darnton writes:
Many Parisians picked up scraps of paper scribbled with verse from cafés and public gardens, then stored
them in their apartments…Wealthier collectors had their secretaries transcribe this material into well-
ordered registered, known as chansonniers. The most famous of these, the ‘Chansonnier Maurepas,’
contains Maurepas’ own collection and runs to thirty-five volumes.
182

In addition to collecting songs, Maurepas led a fascinating life. Secretary of State and minister to
both Louis XV and Louis XVI, he was also a noted singer and satirist in his own right.
183
Though
considered highly intelligent, his musical hobbies and lack of seriousness seem to have
undermined his efficacy as a minister; Paul d’Estrée writes:

180
Chansons 2, 3, 7, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, and 26
181
Hammond, 5.
182
Darnton, 28.
183
Duneton, vol. 1, 793.
51

This young minister…was all at once brilliant and superficial, shrewd and fickle, affable and flippant. His
qualities and his flaws pleasing to his master. He was the most amiable courtier, but the least hardworking
minister…
184

In 1749, despite his popularity, the King exiled Maurepas from Paris for writing an insulting
epigram about Madame de Pompadour, the king’s consort. This exile seems to have curbed his
love of satirical song, as the Maurepas chansonnier only contains examples through 1747.
Maurepas’s personal life aside, the two volumes of the Recueil d’airs notez contain a
wealth of melodies – over 450 – all organized alphabetically. They feature popular vaudeville
tunes and brunettes, airs de cour like Michel Lambert’s “Dans nos bois,” and operatic airs.
While it contains more melodies than the Clef des chansonniers, however, Maurepas’s collection
has certain limitations because it does not provide any text. This means that the useful text-based
information gleaned from the Ballard publication is not available from this source. However, the
breadth of melodies these two volumes contain still makes the Maurepas chansonnier a valuable
source. Further, several of its timbres overlap with those found in the Clef des chansonniers,
though often with discrepancies. In fact, the timbres are identical in only one case, “Lere-lenre.”
In another timbre, “L’Air des Lampons,” the differences are slight, as only a few passing tones
are altered. However, in “L’Air des Enfarinez,” the timbre for “Le Libera de Jules Mazarin,” the
differences between the Maurepas
185
and the Ballard
186
are more substantial:
A.

184
Paul d’Estrée, “Les origines du Chansonnier de Maurepas,” in Revue d’Histoire littéraire de la France
3, no. 3 (1896), 339. “Ce très-jeune ministre – il avait vingt-quatre ans à peine – était à la fois brillant et superficiel,
fin et léger, affable et frivole. Ses qualités et ses défauts plaisaient au maître. Il fut le plus aimable des courtisans,
mais le moins appliqué des ministres…”
185
Recueil d’airs notez, vol. 1, 243.
186
Ballard, vol. 1, 30.
52

B.

Example 3.1. The notated melodies of “L’Air des Enfarinez” as they appear in La Recueil d’airs notez (A)

and
Ballard’s La Clef des chansonnier (B).

The keys are different, there are rhythmic alterations, and certain small melodic contours were
changed. That being said, the form and overall melodic shape is the same; they are clearly two
versions of the same melody. Another timbre for two of the mazarinades, “Les qu’en dira-
t’on,”
187
however, has more glaring differences:
A.

B.

Example 3.2. The notated melodies of “Les Qu’en dira-t’on” as they appear in La Recueil d’airs notez (A)

and
Ballard’s La Clef des chansonniers (B).

Apart from a few motivic similarities, these two melodies have different meters, keys, and even
forms. Give such discrepancies, the question must then be asked: in a performance setting, which
melody should be chosen? In this study, I selected the Ballard versions over those in the
Maurepas chansonnier because they were transcribed earlier. Published in 1717, the Clef des
chansonniers is only 68 years removed from the The Recueil général, which was printed in
1649. By contrast, there is a hundred-year separation between the Maurepas chansonnier and the

187
“Guerchy, Nevillane, St. Mégrin, ou Qu’en dira-t’on ?” from Recueil d’airs notez, vol. 2 (Paris), 333.
53

Fronde, allowing more time for the melodies to evolve away from what they would have
sounded like during the uprising. In addition, the text-underlay models provided by Ballard
motivated the choice. In an example like “Qu’en dira-t’on,” with so many melodic differences,
having a clear understanding of text setting can make a substantial difference in performance.
Essentially, given the absence of any definitive earlier sources for these timbres, the Ballard
represents the better option when a choice between two versions must be made.
Like both the Ballard and the Maurepas, La Clé du caveau is a collection of pre-existing
popular melodies. Pierre Capelle (1772 – 1851) – the maître de cérémonie of the Caveau
moderne, a vaudeville group founded in 1807 that published annual song collections called
L’Épicurien français or Les Dîners du Caveau moderne
188
– compiled the collection and
published the first edition in 1811. Six subsequent editions, each with additional melodies, were
published throughout the nineteenth century; the last was released in 1872.
189
Only the first
edition will be considered in this study, however, as it is the closest chronologically to the
Fronde. As a collection of melodies, the first edition of La Clé du caveau is impressive, featuring
890 timbres, significantly more than both the Clef des chansonniers and the Recueil d’airs notez.
In his avertissement, Capelle writes:
I thought to provide an essential service to the friends of song, and principally to amateurs distant from the
capital, or who are not within reach of shows, in gathering timbres in order, and in one single collection,
these airs that usage or taste have consecrated…
190

In La Clé du caveau, he alphabetized the timbres in the index and assigned each of them a
number that corresponds to the given melody. Like the Recueil d’airs notez, the collection
contains the notated melodies only; he provides no original lyrics and gives no indication of text
underlay. Regardless, Duneton speaks to the usefulness of Capelle’s publication, writing that it
was “precious for whoever wanted to write songs without composing the music themselves, or,
conversely, to sing a song for which one only possesses the indication of the timbre.”
191

Capelle’s collection contains three of the timbres indicated in the Recuiel général,
192
one of

188
Duneton, vol. 2, 277. For more, see Duneton, vol. 2, Chapter 32.
189
Ibid., 307.
190
Capelle, iii. “J’ai cru rendre un service essentiel aux amis de la chanson, et principalement aux amateurs
éloignés de la capitale, ou qui ne sont point à la portée des spectacles, en rassemblant par ordre de timbres, et dans
un seul recueil, ces airs que l’usage ou le goût ont consacrés…”
191
Duneton, vol. 2, 307. “…précieux pour quiconque voulait écrire des chansons sans en composer soi-
même la musique, ou bien, à l’inverse, chanter une chanson dont on ne possède que l’indication du timbre.”
192
Chansons 5, 6, and 20
54

which cannot be found in the earlier sources discussed in this chapter: the timbre “Adieu donc
belle Aminte” for the chanson “L’arrivée de Monsieur de Beaufort, dans la ville de Paris.” The
other two melodies, as in the Recueil d’airs notez, contain variations from the previous sources; I
give preference to the earlier sources of the melodies in Appendix 1.
While these three melodic sources contained the bulk of the timbres compiled thus far,
certain other sources also proved helpful. Barbier and Vernillat’s Histoire de la France par les
chansons, as mentioned, provides five melodies specifically for Recuiel général chansons, two of
which do not appear in any of the three primary sources discussed above. The first is “De
Monceaux,” the timbre for “La Chasse donnée à Mazarin.”
193
The authors cite a 1725 edition of
Ballard’s Clé des chansonniers as their melodic source. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find
a copy of that edition to verify the melody. Given the accuracy with which Barbier and Vernillat
transcribed the other four Recueil général timbres that I can corroborate with primary sources,
however, I include this melody in Appendix 1 as well. The authors also expand their discussion
of sung mazarinades to sources outside the Recueil général. This proved to be fortuitous, as the
timbre for the 1649 mazarinade “La Nouvelle courante de la Reyne” matched the one indicated
in the “Air de cour nouveau, sur la plainte d’Amour, contre la Guerre Parisienne” in the Recueil
général.
194
However, this melody is also problematic, because Barbier and Vernillat erroneously
list its source as the first volume of the Recueil d’airs notez. Because it fits the lyrics of the song,
however, I include it in Appendix 1, even though I cannot yet verify the validity of the melody.
While most of the notated melodies for the Recueil général chansons in this study are
taken from sources published on or after 1717, one notable exception appears: “Laissez paîtres
vos bêtes,” a well-known noël that appears in at least seventeen sources.
195
A monophonic
version appears in Jacques Moderne’s La Fleur des noelz nouvellement notés, published in
1535.
196
The melody, transcribed in a modern edition by Adrienne Block, differs from the
melody found in the Clef des chansonniers (see Example 3.3). Indeed, Block writes, “the
monophonic melody cited in S3 [La Fleur des noelz nouvellement notés] is the only early music
for this noël; the melody resembles the one still in use, in contour if not in detail.”
197
In his 1932

193
Barbier and Vernillat, 33.
194
Ibid., 27.
195
Adrienne F. Block, The Early French Parody Noël, vol. 2 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press,
1983, 102.
196
Ibid.
197
Ibid.
55

dissertation Les noëls et la tradition populaire, Jan Reinier Hendrik de Smidt provides another
version of the melody from 1728, published nearly twenty years before the melody found in the
Maurepas chansonnier.
198
The version Smidt notates comes from l’abbé Pellegrin’s Poésies
chrétiennes. Though it has a different title, “Venez, divin Messie,” Smidt notes that it is the same
melody with a new text.
199
Example 3.3 below shows a comparison of three variations of
“Laissez paître vos bêtes:
A.

B.

C.

Example 3.3. The melodies of “Laissez paîtres vos bêtes” as they appear in La Fleur des noelz nouvellement notés
(A),
200
Poésies chrétiennes (B),
201
and the Maurepas chansonnier (C).
202

198
Jan Reinier Hendrik de Smidt, Les Noëls et la tradition populaire (Amsterdam: H.J. Paris, 1932)
199
Ibid., 140-146.
200
Notated in Block, vol. 2, 103.
201
Notated in Smidt, 145.
202
Maurepas, vol. 2, 29.
56

Despite a few discrepancies, particularly the note-values and measure groupings in version B, all
three variations are similar. Further, each one works well with the mazarinade lyrics. Given this,
I adopt the same approach previously outlined and chose the version notated closest to the
Fronde for Appendix 1; in this case, the one from Pellegrin’s Poésies chrétiennes.
Concerning other timbres, several of the melodies appear to have been composed – or at
least made famous – by le Savoyard, the celebrated mid-seventeenth-century Pont-Neuf chanteur
discussed in Chapter 1. While the original manuscript of his 1645 Recueil général des chansons
du capitaine Savoyard no longer exists,
203
A. Pecheron reprinted his 1665 Recueil des chansons
du Savoyard in 1862;
204
the original publication, of which there is only one extant copy, is
housed in the bibliothèque de l’Arsenal.
205
While none of the melodies in the 1665 collection are
notated, the collection contains 98 Pont-Neuf song texts. Some, like the chansons in the Recueil
général, call for a known timbre. Others, however, simply indicate something like an “air
nouveau.”
206
Duneton suggests that in such cases without a specifically named timbre, le
Savoyard himself likely composed the melodies.
207
The collection is of interest, then, because
several of the Recueil général chansons name timbres from Le Savoyard’s collection that fit this
description, and thus appear to have been composed by the famous street singer. For example,
the song “des Enfarinez,” the timbre for “Le Libera de Jules Mazarin,” appears in the 1665
collection as the “Air sur des enfarinez.”
208
Beyond simply suggesting a composer, this earlier
collection provides eight stanzas of original text and shows that the order of stanzas in Ballards
Clef des chansonniers was altered; he used le Savoyard’s fifth stanza as the first in his collection
of notated vaudeville melodies. The Recueil des chansons du Savoyard also contains the text for
“Thoinon la belle jardinière,”
209
the timbre for both “La Menace du tres-fidelle peuple de Paris”
and “Chanson nouvelle, Sur la delivrance de Monsieur de Brousel.” The melody source for this
song in Appendix 1, Maurepas’ Recueil d’airs notez, failed to provide any original text. Le
Savoyard’s collection even contains texts for several melodies which I have yet to find, such as

203
Duneton, 540.
204
Le Savoyard, Recueil des chansons du Savoyard, réimpression textuelle faite sur l’edition de 1665,
edited by A. Pecheron (Paris: Jules Gay, 1862).
205
Duneton, 540.
206
For an example, Le Savoyard, “Air de cour nouveau,” Recueil des chansons du Savoyard, 4.
207
Duneton, 554.
208
Le Savoyard, 22.
209
Ibid., 48.
57

“Je fuis vostre beauté,”
210
the timbre for the mazarinade “L’aparaison de l’esprit de Monsieur le
Duc de Chatillon.” Similarly, the collection contains the lyrics for “Bachus et l’Amour volage,”
the timbre for “Suplication a monsieur le Prince.”
211
With such lyrics, the Recueil des chansons
du Savoyard allows for a textual comparison between the mazarinades and the original timbre
lyrics, just like Ballard’s Clef des chansonniers. Further, as le Savoyard himself seemingly
composed several of these melodies, this source provides us with an actual known composer for
several melodies in the Recueil général. In addition, the number of Le Savoyard timbres in the
Recueil général suggests that such Pont-Neuf street melodies were a popular choice for
mazarinade timbres.
Finally, a question must be asked: how can songs for which either no timbre is indicated
or no melody has yet been found still be performed? For the two Recueil général chansons –
“Les qu’en dira-t’on des Monopoleurs” and “Le Salut des Partisans, & autres pieces du Temps”
– that do not indicate a timbre, an existing timbre can still be used because each suggests a
known melody. “Les qu’en dira-t’on des Monopoleurs” is especially simple, as the title and the
refrain – “Qu’en dira-t’on?” – match the timbre title of another chanson in the collection, “Le
preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron.” Further, both mazarinades songs have the same
six-line stanzas, masculine and feminine rhyme structure, and syllable counts, as can be seen in
their first stanzas:
“Les qu’en dira-t’on des Monopoleurs” “Le preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron.”
Vous partisans engance trop maudite,
Chacun vous hait comme peste & poison,
Vous estes en fuitte
Mais nous dirons
Que si on vous prend comme des Larons
Qu’en dira-t’on ?
Toy Mazarin qui veut troubler la France,
Par ton esprit diabolique & meschant,
Pour ton offence
Le Parlement,
On a predit de te faire mourir,
Pour te punir.

Given these similarities, and the title and refrain, it is very likely that the timbre for “Les qu’en
dira-t’on des Monopoleurs” is simply “Des qu’en dira-t’on.”
Similarly, “Le Salut des Partisans, & autres pieces du Temps” implies a specific timbre,
though I had to look outside the collection to find it. Like the previous chanson, the refrain,
“Alleluya,” suggested a connection to an earlier mazarinade that did not appear in the Recueil

210
Ibid., 56.
211
Ibid., 109.
58

général: “L’Alleluia des barricades.”
212
Describing the Day of Barricades on August 26, 1648,
this chanson indicates “O Filii” as its timbre. In addition to the refrain, as with the examples in
the previous paragraph, the line count, rhyme structure, and syllable count is the same between
each mazarinade chanson:
“Le Salut des Partisans, & autres pieces du Temps” “L’Alleluia des barricades”
Chantons tout haut, Gaudeamus,
Le Parlement à le dessus,
Et nous remet en nos estats, Alleluya,
Alleluya, Alleluya, Alleluya.
Ce fut en étrange rumeur
Lorsque Paris tout en fureur
S’émut et se barricada.
Alleluya !

While the refrains do initially appear to be different, four “Alleluyas” are actually needed to fit
the melody, making them identical in reality.
213
Given these similarities, especially the refrain, it
is likely that “O Filii” is the timbre for “Le Salut des Partisans, & autres pieces du Temps.”
Even if the songwriter indicates a timbre and it has not yet been found, as is the case with
fourteen Recueil général chansons,
214
a performance solution still exists. In the Clé du caveau,
Capelle suggests simply substituting another preexisting melody whose lyrics have the same
number of lines, rhyme structure, and syllable count.
215
He stresses that it is always preferable to
sing the melody indicated by the songwriter, but that people “will, by this method, be able to
substitute airs that they will not know with ones that are carved in their memories.”
216
He
provides 42 different models for timbres, organized first by number of lines per stanza, and then
by syllable counts and rhyme structure.
217
As an example, I have applied this method to “La
supplication a monsieur le Prince,” the first stanza of which is given below:
Prince gardez que voste haine
Ne vous fasse beaucoup de peine,
Sans fruict & satisfaction
Si vous joüez de vostre reste
Dieu qui sçait vostre intention
Vous là rendra toute funest.

It has eight lines, each with eight syllables. Lines 1, 2, 4, and 6 are feminine rhymes, and lines 3
and 5 are masculine. This adheres to Capelle’s type 30, which indicates three possible alternative

212
Found in Duneton, 503.
213
See chanson 6 in Appendix 1 for the melody.
214
Chansons 1, 4, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, and 27.
215
Capelle, 69.
216
Ibid. “…elles pourront par ce moyen substituer aux airs qu’elles ne sauront point, ceux qui se sont
gravés dans leur mémoire.”
217
Ibid., 70 – 108. He notes that this is just a starting point, and that there are numerous models he does not
outline.
59

timbres: “De tout les capucins du monde,” “Je ne suis né ni roi ni prince,” and “Comme un chien
dans un jeu de quills.”
218
In consulting Capelle’s index, however, the melodies for the first two
titles are actually identical. Even with only two melodies, Capelle cautions that it is important to
pick one with the appropriate affect: “…one must not substitute [an air] unless the mouvement
seems to be the same…taste and the ear alone must guide the singer in this circumstance.”
219

Because he does not provide complete lyrics, I elected to set “Je ne suis né ni roi ni prince”
220
[I
was born neither king nor prince] because the title in some ways resembles that of the
mazarinade itself. Using Capelle’s strategy, then, the Recueil général chanson “La supplication a
monsieur le Prince” could be sung as follows:

As Capelle indicates, the text fits the melody perfectly. While it would always be preferable to
use the timbre indicated, this is a valid performance solution if it cannot be found.
This is the most comprehensive study on the Recueil général to date; however, much can
still be done in future research. First, while I have collected thirteen melodies – seven of which
have not been notated in prior studies – fourteen have yet to be found; more melodies can thus be
sought after and transcribed. Similarly, earlier concordances of the melodies that I have notated
in Appendix 1 can be searched for. After all, in this chapter, I noted the discrepancies between
melodies found in the Ballard, Maurepas, and Capelle collections, stating my preference for the
earliest available one. As it is likely that even those timbres found in the 1717 Clef des
chansonniers, merely 68 years removed from the Recueil général, are somewhat altered from

218
Ibid., 100.
219
Ibid., 69. “…l’on n’y doit substituer que ceux dont le mouvement paraît être le même…le goût et
l’oreille doivent seuls guider le chanteur dans cette circonstance.”
220
Ibid., “No. 137,” 61. The Clé du caveau lacks the final cadential D, which I have provided.
60

those that would have been sung in 1649, finding earlier melodies would allow me to more
accurately represent the songs of the Recueil général. Research can also be done on possible
accompaniments for the chansons. For instance, the melodies can be matched to known bass
patterns. “La Menace du tres-fidelle peuple de Paris,” for example, works well with a folia
pattern. See below for the first two lines with a folia bass:

As mentioned in Chapter 1, the street singers who performed these songs were often
accompanied by hurdy-gurdies, fiddles, or bagpipes.
221
Finding known bass patterns would allow
singers to perform the songs with greater historical authority, more closely approximating how
they would have been heard in 1649.
More efforts can also be taken to find suitable alternative melodies for the Recueil
général chansons for which corresponding timbres are still missing, making it possible to still
perform those songs. As mentioned, Capelle offers the most viable method for finding such
alternatives: search for other timbres whose texts or music have the same line count, syllable
counts, and rhyme structure as the mazarinade text. However, rather than relying on his 1811
collection – which was published 162 years after the parlementary Fronde – earlier sources can
be consulted. One fruitful possibility is Thoinot Arbeau’s 1589 Orchesographie, a dance manual
that provides melodies – both texted and untexted – for popular sixteenth-century dances.
222
As
the musical meters often correspond perfectly to the poetic meters found in the Recueil général,
the manual is a viable source of melodies published only sixty years prior to the Fronde. For
example, the dance “Air du branle de Bourgoigne”
223
works well with“Chanson d’un bon
garçon, qui boy de réjoüyssance sur la fuitte des Monopoleurs”:

221
Darnton, 85.
222
Thoinot Arbeau, Orchésographie et traicte en forme de dialogue par lequel toutes personnes peuvent
facilement apprendre & practiquer l'honneste exercice des dances (Langres: Jehan des Preyz, 1589)
223
Arbeau, “Air du branle de Bourgoigne,” 146.
61

The melody from Orchesographie suits the syllables and rhymes perfectly. The four phrases
correspond to the four lines in each stanza of the mazarinade. Further, the alternating open and
closed cadences of the dance melody adhere to the chanson’s feminine and masculine rhyme
structure. Though I did not include it in Appendix 1 because it is not the timbre indicated by the
songwriter, it is certainly a melody that can be used in performance.
Finally, more comparisons can be done between the lyrics of the original timbres and the
mazarinades. As I briefly demonstrated in this chapter with the timbre “Les enfarinez,” such
research elucidates why songwriters chose the specific melodies they did. It can also help to
clarify their messages and help audiences better understand how the chansons fit within the
historical and political context of the parlementary Fronde. In essence, analyzing the Recueil
général texts and joining them with their intended melodies demonstrates how the frondeurs so
effectively and quickly spread news and opinions throughout Paris during the parlementary
Fronde, particularly to the illiterate masses who suffered most during Condé’s blockade of the
city. Looking at the timbres in general, one can why they were such an effective medium: their
simple and repetitive nature, generally narrow ranges, and straightforward rhythms made them
catchy and singable enough for the average Parisian to memorize and perform. Further, their
inflammatory lyrics – and the fact that they offered scapegoats for the Parisians’ anger –
contributed to their memorability and surely motivated the people to continue disseminating
them throughout the capital. The chansons contained in the Recueil général are important works
that can help us untangle one of the most complicated and historically significant times in the
French Baroque.

62

Works Cited
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peuvent facilement apprendre & practiquer l'honneste exercice des dances. Langres:
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Ballard, Jean-Baptiste Christophe. La Clef des Chansonniers, volume 2. Paris: Ballard, 1717.
Barbier, Pierre, and France Vernillat. Histoire de la France par les chansons: Mazarin et Louis
XIV. Volume 2. Paris: nrf Gallimard, 1956.
Belly, Marlène. “Review of La Clef des Chansonniers (1717): Erweiterte kritische Neuausgabe.”
In Revue de Musiscologie 92, no. 2 (2006): 417 – 419.
Bercé, Yves-Marie. The Birth of Absolutism: A History of France, 1598 – 1661. Translated by
Richard Rex. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
Block, Adrienne F. The Early French Parody Noël. Volume 2. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research
Press, 1983.
Capelle, Pierre. La Clé du caveau, à l’usage de tous les chansonniers française, des amateurs,
auteurs, acteurs du vaudeville & de tous les amis de la chanson. Paris: Richehomme,
1811.

Carrier, Hubert. La Presse de la Fronde (1648 – 1653): Les Mazarinades, la conquête de
l’opinion. Gevena: Librairie Droz, 1989.
---. La Presse de la Fronde (1648 – 1653): Les Mazarinades, les hommes du livre. Geneva:
Librairie Droz, 1991.
Darnton, Robert. Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century
France. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
2010.
Duneton, Claude. Histoire de la chanson française: des origines à 1780. Volumes 1 and 2. Paris:
Éditions du Seuil, 1998.
d’Estrée, Paul. “Les origines du Chansonnier de Maurepas.” Revue d’Histoire littéraire de la
France 3, no. 3 (1896): 332 – 345.
Ferretti, Giuliano. “Chansons et lutte politique au temps de Richelieu.” In Poésie, musique et
société: L’air de cour en France au XVIIe siècle, edited by Georgie Durosoir, 43 – 65.
Sprimont, Belgium: Mardaga, 2006.

Fumaroli, Marc. “Richelieu, Patron of the Arts.” In Richelieu: Art and Power, edited by Hilliard
T Godfarb. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2002.

Gentillet, Innocent. “Preface,” Discours sur le moyen de bien gouverner...contre Nicolas
Machiavel Florentin. Paris, 1579.

63

Gétreau, Florence. “Street Musicians of Paris: Evolution of an Image.” In Music in Art 23, no.
1/2 (Spring-Fall, 1998): 62 – 78.

Gibson, Wendy. A Tragic Farce: The Fronde (1648-1653). Exeter: Elm Bank Publications,
1998.
Hammond, Nicholas. Gossip, Sexuality and Scandal in France (1610 – 1715). New York: Peter
Lang, 2011.

Heller, Henry. Anti-Italianism in Sixteenth-Century France. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2003.

Jouhaud, Christian. “Écriture et action au XVIIe siècle sur un corpus de mazarinades.” Annales.
Histoires. Sciences Sociales 38, no. 1 (Jan. – Feb. 1983): 42 – 64.
Kettering, Sharon. “Patronage and Politics during the Fronde.” French Historical Studies 14, no.
3 (Spring, 1986): 409 – 441.
Laforte, Conrad. Poetiques de la chanson traditionelle francaise. Sainte-foy: Les Presses de
L’Universite Laval, 1993.
Launay, Denise. “La Musique a Paris, malgré la Fronde.” In La Fronde en Questions: Actes du
dix-huitieme colloque du centre meridional de rencontres sur le XVIIeme siècle, edited
by Roger Duchêne and Pierre Ronzeaud, 339 – 349. Provence: Université de Provence,
1989.
Levi, Anthony. Louis XIV. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2004.
Loret, Jean. La Muze historiques, ou recueil des lettres en vers contenant les Nouvelles du temps,
écrites à son Altesse Madamoizelle de Longueville, volume 1. Paris: P. Jannet, 1857.
Merrick, Jeffrey. “The Cardinal and the Queen: Sexual and Political Disorders in the
Mazarinades.” French Historical Studies 18, no. 3 (Spring, 1994): 667 – 699.
Ranum, Orest. The Fronde: A French Revolution 1648 – 1652. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company.
---. Paris in the Age of Absolutism. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2002.
Recueil d’airs notez rangés par ordre alphabétique. Paris.
Recueil général de toutes les chansons mazarinistes. Et avec plusieurs qui n’ont point estées
chantées. Paris: 1649.

Rowen, Herbert H. The King’s State: Proprietary Dynasticism in Early Modern France. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980.
Le Savoyard. “Air nouveau du Savoyard.” In Recueil nouveau des chansons du Savoyard, par
luy seul chantées dans Paris. Paris: Jean Promé, 1665.
64

Sawyer, Jeffrey K. Printed Poison: Pamphlet Propaganda, Faction Politics, and the Public
Sphere in Early Seventeenth-Century France. Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1990.
Serroy, Jean. “Scarron, le burlesque et le Fronde.” In La Fronde en Questions: Actes du dix-
huitieme colloque du centre meridional de rencontres sur le XVIIeme siècle, edited by
Roger Duchêne and Pierre Ronzeaud, 143 - 155. Provence: Université de Provence, 1989.
Simpson, Claude M. The Broadside Ballad and Its Music. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press,
1966.
Smidt, Jan Reinier Hendrik de. Les Noëls et la tradition populaire. Amsterdam: H.J. Paris, 1932.
Sonnino, Paul. Mazarin’s Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Treasure, Geoffrey. Mazarin: The Crisis of Absolutism in France. New York: Routledge, 1995.
---. Richelieu and Mazarin. New York: Routledge, 1998.

65

Appendix 1
The Recueil général Lyrics, Translations, and Melodies
1. Arrest de la Cour de Parlement, donné contre Jules Mazarin, 66
2. La Menace du tres-fidelle peuple de Paris, faites à Mazarin, 68
3. Les qu’en dira-t’on des Monopoleurs, &c., 70
4. Chanson d’un bon garçon, qui boy de réjoüyssance sur la fuitte des Monopoleurs, 72
5. L’arrivée de Monsieur de Beaufort, dans la ville de Paris, 73
6. Le Salut des Partisans, & autres pieces du Temps, 75
7. Air du temps, 77
8. Air de Cour nouveau, sur la plainte de l’Amour, contre la Guerre Parisienne, 79
9. La Chanson des Barricades de Paris, composée par six Harangeres, 81
10. La chasse donnée à Mazarin, par les Païsans des Bourgs & des Villages, sur le Tocsain, 83
11. Le Libera de Jules Mazarin, ce meschant perfide Ministre d’Estat, 85
12. Chanson nouvelle, de Jules Mazarin, dit je suis l’Arman, 87
13. Suplication a monsieur le Prince, de quitter le party Mazarinistes, 89
14. Chanson nouvelle sur la genereuse resolution d’une Fille, qui veut mourir pour le service du Roy
& sa patrie, & comme elle prend les Armes à se sujet, 91
15. L’Adieu de Mazarin à la France, & la Confession qu’il a fait de toute ses fourberies, auparavant
son depart, 93
16. La vie & la mort de Monsieur de Clanleu, Gouverneur de Charaton, lequel fut tué dans la Bataile
au grand regret des Parisiens, 95
17. Les Regrets de Madame de Chatillon, sur la mort de son cher Espoux, 99
18. Les Adieux qu’à fait Monsieur de Chastillon avant que de mourir, à sa Mere & à sa Femme, 101
19. L’aparision de l’esprit de Monsieur le Duc de Chatillon, au Prince de Condé, 103
20. Les trahysons de Mazarin descouverte; Avec Salvé Regina, & l’Inmanus, qu’il doit chanter à la
mort, 105
21. Le Grand Courrier General, rapportant toute les Nouvelles qui ce passe dans la France, 107
22. Le Courrier de la Cour, rapportant toute les Nouvelles qui ce passe à present dans Paris, & dans la
Campagne, 111
23. Chanson nouvelle, Sur la Declaration de nos Princes & Generaux, & de tout le people de Paris,
sur le refus de Mazarin, & ne veulent point qu’il revienne jamais, 114
24. Chanson nouvelle, Sur la delivrance de Monsieur de Brousel, Conseiller du Roy en sa Cour de
Parlement, 116
25. La harangue du Peuple aux Generaux, pour reduire au Tombeau Mazarin, & la menace de tous les
Bourgeois de la France pour le mal traité, 118
26. Le preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron, pour recevoir Mazarin, dans ses Enfers, 121
27. Histoire veritable d’un malheureux Monopoleur, lequel a esté emporté par les Diables, prés la
ville de Lyon, 123

66

1. Arrest de la Cour de Parlement, donné contre Jules Mazarin:

Sur le chant, Le Roy d’Hongrie & L’Empereur, &c.
Enfin tous les Parisiens,
Seront hors de souffrance,
Puisque tous les Italiens,
Sortiront hors de France,
Le Bonnet Rouge est tout confus
Ses Benefices sont perdus
Ce Cardinal, ce Cardinal,
Ne nous fera plus tant de mal.

Il a tiré l’or & l’argent,
Par des notables sommes
Pour se rendre riche & puissant
Dans la ville de Rome,
Y faisant bastir des Palais,
S’est enrichy pour tout jamais,
Ce Cardinal, &c.

Il a fait patir en tous lieux,
Le peuple de la France,
Comme un meschant pernicieux
Les mettant en souffrance
Ne le pouvant plus supporter
Le Diable le puisse emporter,
Le Cardinal, &c.

Il a contre Dieu & la Loy,
D’une mauvaise sorte
La nuict enlevé nostre Roy,
Pour luy servir d’escorte,
Paris à voulu affamer,
Mais il luy faut se retirer,
Ce Cardinal, &c.

Enfin Messieurs du Parlement,
Ont dressé sa Sentence,
Qu’il faloit dans huict jours de temps
Qu’il sortit hors de France,
Où qu’il seroit assassiné,
Ainsi comme il a merité
Le Cardinal, &c.

Les Parisians sont hors d’espoir,
Et ont tout pris la fuitte
Le Cardinal au desespoir,
S’en ira a leur suitte,
Les Monopoleurs sont à cu,
Eussent-ils tous le col rompu,
Le Cardinal, &c.

Si dans Paris on le tenoit,
Finally all Parisians,
Will be without suffering,
Once all the Italians
Leave France,
The Red Cap is all distressed
His profits are lost
This Cardinal, This Cardinal,
Will not cause us any more woe.

He took gold and silver
In significant sums
To make himself rich and powerful
In the city of Rome,
There, constructing palaces,
He enriched himself forever,
This Cardinal…

He has caused suffering in all places
For the people of France,
Like a pernicious villain
Causing them pain
No longer being able to support him,
The Devil can take him away.
This Cardinal…

He has, against God and the law,
An evil plan,
By night he abducted our King,
To serve as his escort,
He wanted Paris to starve,
But he must withdraw,
This Cardinal…

Finally, the Lords of Parlement
Drew up his sentence,
That he must, in eight days’ time,
Leave France,
Or he would be assassinated,
Just as he deserves,
This Cardinal…

Parisians are without hope
And have all taken flight
The Cardinal, in despair,
Will pursue them there,
The Monopolizers are worried
All of them bursting at the neck,
This Cardinal…

If, in Paris, we held him,
67

On luy feroit grand Feste,
Chacun son corps deschireroit
Et les autres la teste,
Le Marqui d’Ancre n’eust esté,
Jamais si-bien que luy traitté
Ce Cardinal, &c.

Prions-Dieu pour le Roy Louys,
Et les Princes de France,
Qu’ils le rameine dans Paris,
En grande réjouyssance,
Et pour Messieurs du Parlement,
Qui ont dressé le jugement,
Au Cardinal, au Cardinal,
Qui nous avait fait tant de mal.

We would throw a big festival for him,
Everyone would rip apart his body,
And others his head,
The Marqui d’Ancre had never been
So well treated as him
This Cardinal…

Pray to God for King Louis,
And the Princes of France
That they bring him back to Paris,
In great rejoicing,
And for the Lords of Parlement,
Who decreed this judgement
On the Cardinal, on the Cardinal
Who caused us so much woe.

68

2. La Menace du tres-fidelle peuple de Paris, faites à Mazarin

Sur le chant, Thoinon la belle jardiniere, &c.
224

Je croy que ta couleur est pasle,
Et que ton coeur est bien chagrin,
Car à present tout chacun parle,
Contre toy Jules Mazarin,
Meschant deloyal & perfide
Faut que de la France tu vide.

Retourne t’en en Italie,
Mal-heureux d’où tu est venu,
Car de mal ton ame est remplie
Mais ton dessein est reconnu,
Si jamais dans Paris tu rentre
On te fera comme au Marquis d’Ancre.

Tu pensois bien ruyner la France,
Afin de nous faire perir
Mais on ne dresse ta Sentence,
Pour toy mesme faire mourir:
Si jamais dans Paris tu rentre &c.

Tu estois bien tenté du Diable,
De nous faire tan endurer
Mais faut que le malheur t’accable,
Croit que tu peux bien esperer,
Que si dedans Paris tu entre, &c.

La populace est si esmeuë,
Contre toy mauvais Cardinal,
Si on te voyoit dans les ruës
On te feroit beaucoup de mal,
Si jamais, &c.

Tous chacun jure ta ruyne,
Et le peuple Parisien,
I believe that your complexion is pale
And that your heart is despondent,
Because at present, everyone speaks
Against you Jules Mazarin,
Nasty, disloyal, and perfidious
It is necessary that you leave France.

Return to Italy,
The unfortunate place from which you came,
Because your soul is full of evil,
But your face is known,
If ever you return to Paris
We will do to you as we did to the Marquis d’Ancre.

You thought to ruin France,
After making us perish
But one draws up your sentence,
For you yourself will be killed:
If ever you return to Paris…

You were indeed from the Devil
To make us endure so much
But misfortune must overcome you,
Believe that you can well hope,
If in Paris you enter…

The populace is so stirred up
Against you, nasty Cardinal,
That if one saw you in the streets
One would cause you a great deal of harm,
If ever…

Everyone promises your ruin
And the Parisian people,

224
Maurepas, “Catin la belle jardinière,” vol. 1, 129.
69

Ensemble se fasche & mutine
Contre toy pauvre Italien,
Si jamais, &c.

Il faut que’en tu retourne à Rome,
Peur que tu ne trouve ta fin,
Mais prend garde qu’on ne t’assomme
Si on te rencontre en chemin,
Si jamais, &c.

Il faut que tu change ta vie,
Songe donc à estre meilleur
Crainte qu’elle ne soit suivie
De quelque sinistre mal-heur,
Car tu nous a trop fait la nique,
225

Par ton conseil tres tiranique.
Are together angry and mutinous
Against you, poor Italian,
If ever…

You must return to Rome,
Lest you find your end,
But careful that one not recognize you
If one meets you on the path,
If ever…

You must change your life,
Dream, thus, of being better
For fear that it is not followed
By some sinister misfortune,
Because you have mocked us too much
With your tyrannical counsel.

225
According to Cotgrave, “to mocke by nodding, or lifting up of the chinne; or more properly, to threaten
or defie, by putting the thumbe naile into the mouth, and with a ierke (from th’upper teeth) make it to knacke.”
Cotgrave, NIV.
70

3. Les qu’en dira-t’on des Monopoleurs, &c.
226

Vous partisans engance trop maudite,
Chacun vous hait comme peste & poison,
Vous estes en fuitte
Mais nous dirons
Que si on vous pend comme des Larons
Qu’en dira-t’on ?

Que fussiez tous au profound des abismes
Pour servir de Compagnie à Pluton,
Et pour vos crimes
Nous esperons,
Dedans ce lieux servirez de tisons
Qu’en dira-t’on ?

Car Lucifer & sa trouppe damnée,
Vous fera fort-belle reception,
Bien ordonnée,
De Marmitons,
Pour vous traitter à grands coups de bastons,
Qu’en dira-t’on ?

Allez, allez dedans ces fosses noires
Vous meritez cette punition,
Ils nous faut croire
Que tout de bon,
Que vous serez noire comme charbon
Qu’en dira-t’on ?

Judas, Caïn, Barabas & Pilate,
Cayhe avecque l’Empereur Neron,
Viendront en haste,
D’affection
Vous recevoir comme leur Compagnons;
Qu’en dira-t’on ?

Vous ne ferez jamais de Monopoles
You wretched mob of partisans,
Everyone hates you like pests and poison,
You are fleeing
But we will say
That if one takes you as robbers,
What will people say?

What you all would do in the deep abyss
To serve the company of Puto,
And for your crimes
We hope
In this place you will serve as embers
What will people say?

Because Lucifer and his damned troupe
Will make a beautiful reception for you,
Well organized
With kitchen boys
To treat you with great blows from their staffs,
What will people say?

Go, go into the blacks pits
You deserve this punishment,
They must believe us
That, hopefully,
You will be black like coal
What will people say?

Judas, Cain, Barabas, and Pilate,
Frozen with Emperor Nero,
Will hastily come
From affection
To receive you as their companion;
What will people say?

You will never make monopolies

226
Ballard, vol. 1, 20. Another version in Maurepas, volume 2, 333. While this chanson indicated no
timbre, its refrain, syllable count, and rhyme structure suggest “Les qu’en dira-t’on.” For more, see Chapter 3.
71

Traistres remplis d’abomination,
Car nos pistoles,
Et nos Doublons:
Vous nous avez enlevé à foison
Qu’en dira-t’on ?

Monopoleurs le Diable vous entraisne,
Car de bon coeur tous nous le souhaitons,
Que dans la Seyne,
Fussiez au fond
Et noyez tous comme fut Pharaon:
Qu’en dira-t’on ?

La pauvre France sera delivrée,
Et ne sera plus dans l’opression
Tiranisée,
Par ce Desmons,
Qui seront tous mis en destruction,
Qu’en dira-t’on ?

Abominable traitors,
Because our pistoles
And our doubloons
You stole from us in abundance
What will people say?

Monopolizers, the Devil drags you away,
Because all with good hearts we wish it,
That you sink to the bottom
Of the Seine,
Drowning just like the Pharoah:
What will people say?

Poor France will be delivered,
And will no longer be oppressed,
Tyrannized
By these demons,
Who will all be destroyed,
What will people say?

72

4. Chanson d’un bon garçon, qui boy de réjoüyssance sur la fuitte des
Monopoleurs:

Sur un chant qui coure, &c

Je dépite, je dépite,
Qu’aucun boive plus que moy,
Les Maltotiers sont en fuitte,
J’en suis joyeux & j’en boy.

Tous les Diables, tous les Diables,
Prennent les Monopoleurs,
Car ces traistre miserables
Nous cause de grands mal-heur.

Crions vive, crions vive,
Le Roy, & le Parlement,
A celle-fin qu’ils nous prive
De nostre peyne & tourment.

Cousin Gilles, Cousin Gilles,
Donne à boire au voisin Luc,
Car je voy qu’il est débille,
Et me semble tout caduc.

Quoy qu’on die, quoy qu’on die,
De tout ce bruit là qui court
Je feray pourtant la vie,
A ces bruits faisant le sourd.

J’ay en hayne, j’ay en hayne,
Ces Coquins de Maltotiers
Fussent-ils tous à la Gesne,
Je le voudrois volontiers.

On travaille, on travaille,
A nos maux diminuër
C’est pourquoy je fais gogaille
Et j’y veux continuër.

Du Commerce, du Commerce,
Je ne veux point me mesler
Quand un tonneau est en perce,
J’ayme bien mieux grenoüiller.

Quoy qu’on fasse, quoy qu’on fasse
Il me faut donner du vin,
Aprés je fais une farce,
Quand ce seroit Tabarin.

Il faut boire, il faut boire,
A la santé de Broussel,
Et l’avoir dans la memoire,
Car il est beny du Ciel.
I fret, I fret
That no one can drink more than me,
The toll-gatherers are on the run,
I am happy about that and drink to it.

All the Devils, all the Devils,
Take the Monopolizers,
Because these miserable traitors
Cause us huge misfortune.

We cry long live, we cry long live
The King and Parlement,
To this end that they take away
Our pain and torment

Cousin Gilles, cousin Gilles
Give a drink to neighbor Luc,
Because I see that he is feeble,
And seems to me all ready to fall.

Whatever one says, whatever one says
About all the rumors that circulates,
I will live my life,
Muffling these rumors.

I hate them, I hate them,
These cowardly toll-gatherers,
I would happily like it
If they were all financially ruined.

We work, we work
To reduce our woes
It is why I frolic
And I want to continue doing so.

With commerce, with commerce
I do not want to mix myself,
When a barrel is broken,
I would much rather drink it like a frog.

Whatever we do, whatever we do
I must be given wine
Afterwords, I will put on a farce
When it would be Tabarin.

One must drink, one must drink
To Broussel’s health,
And keep him in our memory
Because he is heaven blessed.
73

5. L’arrivée de Monsieur de Beaufort, dans la ville de Paris:
Sur le chant, Adieu donc belle Aminte, &c.
227

Beaufort, courage martial,
Est venu pour finir nos peynes
Il est hors du bois de Vincienne
Tout en dépit du Cardinal,
Ce Prince magnanime,
Ce grand coeur de Beaufort,
Les Parisiens estimes,
Qui sera leur support.

Mazarin sera fugitif,
Car par sa grande outrecuidance
Il a tant fait souffrir la France,
Et tenu ce Prince captif,
Ce Prince magnanime, &c.

Chacun se doit bien réjoüir,
Esperant sortir de misere,
Ce vaillant Duc se delibere,
Dans le bon-heur nous restablir,
Ce Prince magnanime, &c.

Paris l’avoit bien souhaitté,
Mais à present qu’il le possede,
Il croit recncontrer le remede,
Et trouver sa felicité,
Ce Prince…

Voyant ses genereux exploits,
Sa valeur & la hardiesse,
On cria avecques allegresse,
Vive ce grand Seigneur François,
Beaufort, with martial courage,
Came to put an end to our pains.
He escaped from the bois de Vincennes
All despite the Cardinal,
This magnanimous Prince,
The big-hearted Beaufort,
The Parisians esteem,
Will be their support.

Mazarin will be a fugitive,
Because, by his great presumptuousness,
He made France suffer so much,
And held this Prince captive,
This magnanimous…

Everyone must rejoice,
Hoping to leave this misery,
This valiant Duke himself thinks
To reestablish us in good fortune,
This magnanimous…

Paris had hoped for him,
But now that it possesses him,
It believes it will be cured
And find bliss.
This magnanimous…

Seeing his generous exploits,
His valor and his boldness,
One will cry with enthusiasm,
‘Long live this great French Seigneur!’

227
Capelle, “Adieu donc dame Francoise,” 7.
74

Ce Prince magnanime, &c.

Chacun est contant & joyeux,
A cause de sa délivrance,
Car il nous donne esperance,
Qu’on le verra victorieux
Ce Prince magnanime, &c.

Il est hardy plain de valeur,
Et plus vaillant que son espée
Heureuse soit son arivée,
Qui sera pour nostre bon-heur
Ce Prince magnanime,
Ce grand coeur de Beaufort,
Les Parisiens estime,
Qu’il sera leur Support.
This magnanimous…

Everyone is happy and joyous
Thanks to his deliverance,
Because he gives us hope
That we will see him victorious,
This magnanimous…

He is bold and full of valor,
And more valiant than his sword,
His arrival is lucky,
And will be for our good fortune.
This magnanimous Prince,
The big-hearted Beaufort,
The Parisians esteem,
Will be their support.

75

6. Le Salut des Partisans, & autres pieces du Temps.
228

228
Likely uses the same tune as the “Alleluya des barricades” (See Chapter 3). Capelle, 180.
229
A mender of old garments according to Cotgrave.
Chantons tout haut, Gaudeamus,
Le Parlement à le dessus,
Et nous remet en nos estats, Alleluya,
Alleluya, Alleluya, Alleluya.

Nous joüyssons par la bonté
De cette ancienne liberté,
Plus d’Impost l’on ne souffrira,
Alleluya, &c.

Tous les Maltotiers sont camus,
Ces mal-heureux n’en peuvent plus,
Retournent en leurs premiers estats,
Alleluya, &c.

Charles Picard tout le premier,
Reprend l’estat de Cordonnier,
Que jadis son exerça
Alleluya, &c.

Tabouret veut aussi rentrer,
Dedans l’honnorable Mestier,
De Frippier
229
tant il s’y ayma,
Alleluya, &c.

Doublet malgré tous ses supposts,
Reprend aujourd’huy les sabots,
Que dans Paris il apporta,
Alleluya, &c.

Pour le Fevre chacun soustien,
Que puis qu’il est venu de rien,
En l’air ces jours il finira,
Alleluya, &c.

Mesme l’on void que Guenegaud,
We sing out loud “Gaudeamus,”
Parlement is emminent
And restores us to our trades, Alleluya
Alleluya, Alleluya, Alleluya.

We benefit from the goodness
Of this ancient freedom,
We will not tolerate any more taxes,
Alleluya, etc.

All of the tax collectors are snub-nosed,
These poor people can no longer
Return to their initial trades,
Alleluya, etc.

First, Charles Picard
Retakes the trade of cobbler,
For which he was trained
Alleluya, etc.

Tabouret also wants to return
To the honorable career
Of fripier, which he loved so much
Alleluya, etc.

Doublet, despite all of his henchmen,
Today resumes the horseshoes
Which he brought in Paris
Alleluya, etc.

For le Fevre, everyone supports
That since he came from nothing,
He will finish his days aloft,
Alleluya, etc.

We even see that Guenegaud,
76

Qui vivoit jadis à gaugaud,
A grand’ peyne il s’en souvera,
Alleluya, &c.

Quoy qu’on ait vue Monsieur Larcher,
Avec grand train tousjours marcher
Au village on le trouvera,
Alleluya, &c.

Sans rechercher l’extraction
De Catelan, ny sa maison,
D’abord on croit qu’on le pendra
Alleluya, &c.

Et pour le regard d’Emery:
Charcun soustient dedans Paris
Que le Diable l’emportera,
Alleluya, &c.

Or-sus il nous faut réjoüyr,
Et ne plus jamais se servir
De ces Diables incarnez là,
Alleluya, &c.

Et ce Sorcier de Mazarin,
Qui a soustenu tout le train,
C’estoit pour troubler tout l’Estat,
Alleluya, &c.
Who formerly lived at Gaugaud,
At great pains, he will remember it,
Alleluya, etc.

Although we saw Monsieur Larcher
Always walking with a big retinue,
We will now find him in the village,
Alleluya, etc.

Without seeking the extraction
Of Catelan, neither his house
So there we believe that we will hang him,
Alleluya, etc.

And regarding d’Hemery,
Everyone in Paris supports
That the devil take him away,
Alleluya, etc.

But we must be glad,
And never again serve
These devils incarnate,
Alleluya, etc.

And this socercer Mazarin,
Who supported all the retinue,
It was to trouble the State,
Alleluya, etc.

77

7. Air du temps:
Sur le chant: Laissez paistre vos bestes.
230

Le cardinal cét animal,
Qui est cause de nostre mal,
Et son Mulet & son Cheval,
Il ruyne tout le peuple,
Cét hypocrite & endiablé
Cependant cét infame
Fait encherir nos bleds,
Quoy que ne soyez bestes,
Pauvres Laboureurs & Marchands,
L’on vous veut faire paistre
L’herbe parmy les Champs.

Il a ravy tous nos Louys,
Pour envoyer en son pays,
Car les Jules en sont banis;
Mais s’il ne les rapporte
Il se verra bien-tost puny,
Le grand Diable l’emporte,
S’il ne les va querir,
Quoy que ne soyez bestes, &c.

Et ce pourceau de Chancelier,
Qui de nos bouës à tant mangé,
Qu’en puisse-il estre crevé.
Dedans l’Hostel de Luynes,
S’il ne s’y fut bien-tost sauvé,
L’on l’eut mis dans la Seine,
Pour l’apprendre à nager,
Quoy que ne soyez bestes, &c.

La Melleraye s’en est meslé,
The cardinal is an animal
Who is the cause of our misery,
And his mule and his horse,
He ruins all the people,
His hypocrisy and his wildness
Yet this infamous one
Raised the price of our wheat.
Although you are not beasts,
Poor Laborers and Merchants,
He wants to make you graze
On the grass in the fields.

He took all of our Louis,
To send them to his country,
Because the Jules are banished there;
But if he does not bring them back,
He will soon see himself punished,
The great Devil take him
If he does not go fetch them.
That you be not beasts…

And this swine of a Chancellor,
Who has eaten so much from our troughs
That he may burst,
In the Town Hall of Luynes,
If he had not saved himself there,
One would have thrown him in the Seine
In order to teach him how to swim.
Although you are not beasts…

La Melleraye threw his lot in with them,

230
Notated in Jan Reinier Hendrik de Smidt, Les Noëls et la tradition populaire, 145. Originally from
L’abbé Pellegrin, Poésies chrétiennes (1728), 3. Another version in Maurepas, vol. 2, 29.
78

Qui a esté bien estrillé
Et par les Mariniers gaulé;
Les grands Crocs de la Gréve:
L’on fait prompement retirer,
Et eut des coups de pierre;
Par dessus le marché,
Quoy que ne soyez bestes…

Particele, ce gros Dragon,
Il eut esté pendu dans Lyon,
Ce qui luy fit changer son nom,
S’enfuya de la ville
Pour se souver en Avignon,
Les juifs le retirerent
Comme leur Compagnon,
Quoy que ne soyez bestes, &c.

Où estoient ces Monopoleurs,
Tous ces Partisans & Volleurs,
Et de la France les Mineurs:
Alors des Barricades,
Si l’on les eust peu attrapper
Nostre brave Brigade
Les eust fait escorcher,
Quoy que ne soyez bestes, &c.

Mais Nosseigneurs de Parlement,
Donneront bien-tost jugement:
Contre ces traistres insolents
Pour mettre à la potence,
Et puis de là à Mont-faucon,
Cette Maudite engeance
Helas ! Qu’en dira t’on ?
Quoy que ne soyez bestes, &c.

Grand Parlement à cette-fois,
A ces Volleurs faites les Loix,
Que le bon-temps faissiez revoir
Parmy toute la France,
Comme autres-fois il a esté,
Par vostre prevoyance,
Et grande charité:
Quoy que ne soyez, &c.

Et de Bougeois, prudents Soldats:
Qui vous disposez aux Combats,
Pour un sujet si juste, helas !
Qu’un Paris dans la France,
Ne respire que pour son Roy,
Pour estre en asseurance
Et vivre soubs sa Loy,
Quoy que ne soyez bestes,
Pauvres Laboureurs & Marchands:
L’on veut vous faire paistre
L’herbe parmy les Champs.
Who were well beaten,
And by the sailors knocked down;
The great Crocs de la Gréve:
We promptly bring him back,
And have the stoning stones
From the marketplace,
Although you are not beasts…

Particele, this great Dragon,
Would have been hanged in Lyon,
Which made him change his name
And flee the city
To save himself in Avignon;
The Jews recall him
As their companion,
Although you are not beasts…

Where were the Monopolizers
All the partisans and thieves,
And the minors of France:
So the barricades,
If we can capture them there,
Our brave Brigade
Can then flay them.
Although you are not beasts…

But our Lords of Parlement
Will soon give judgement
Against these insolent traitors
To take them to the gallows,
And then there, at Mont-faucon,
This damned crew
Alas! What will people say?
Although you are not beasts...

Great Parlement at that time,
Made laws against these thieves,
So that the good times would return
To all of France
As it was in other times
By your foresight
And great charity:
Although you are not beasts…

And of the bourgeois, prudent Soldiers:
Who prepare you for combat,
For so great a cause, alas!
That a Parisian in France
Does not breathe except
To assure the king,
And live under his law.
Although you are not beasts,
Poor Laborers and Merchants:
One wants to make you graze
On the grass in the Fields.

79

8. Air de Cour nouveau, sur la plainte de l’Amour, contre la Guerre
Parisienne:
Sur le chant, De la Courante de la Reyne, &c.
231

Que vous nous causé de tourment
Fascheux Parlement,
Que vos Arrests,
Sont ennemis de tous nos interrests,
Le Carnaval à perdu tous ces charmes
Tout est en armes
Et les Amours,
Sont effrayez par le bruit des Tambours.

La Guerre va chassé l’Amour,
Ainsi que la Cour,
Est de Paris,
La peure banit & les Jeux & les ris,
Adieu le Bal, Adieu les promades,
Les Serenades,
Car les Amours,
Sont effrayez par les bruits des Tambours.

Mars est un fort mauvais Galand,
Il est insolent,
Et la beauté,
Perd tous ces droits auprés de la Ferté
On ne peut pas acordez les Trompettes,
Et le Fleurettes,
Cars les Amours
Sont effroyez par les bruits des Tambours.

Mars oste tous les revenus,
A Dame Venus:
Les cheres soeurs,
N’ont à present ny argent ny douceur
On se duiroit pour un sac de Farine,
Les plus Divines,
How you cause us torment
Angry Parlement,
Your decrees
Are enemies to all our interests,
The Carnival lost all its charms,
Everyone is up in arms,
And Loves
Are scared off by the clamor of drums.

War will chase away Love
As well as the Court,
And in Paris,
Fear banishes games and laughter;
Goodbye balls, Goodbye promenades
And serenades,
Because Loves
Are scared off by the clamor of drums.

Mars is a bad suitor,
He is insolent,
And beauty
Loses all of its rights to Pride.
One cannot yield to the trumpets
And the florets,
Because Loves
Are scared off by the clamor of drums.

Mars confiscates all the revenue
From Dame Venus:
The dear sisters
At present have neither money nor comfort,
One would use them for a sack of flour,
The most Divine,

231
Barbier and Vernillat, vol. 2, 27.
80

Car les Amours
Sont effrayez par les bruits des Tambours.

Place Royalle autant d’Amants,
Monstroient leurs tourments
Où leurs destins,
Estoit tousjours flatté par Constantin
On n’entend plus au lieu de tant d’Aubaudes:
Que mousquetades,
Et les Amours,
Pour tousjours n’ont plus que son des Tambours.

Que de plaisirs fait le Blocus,
A tant de Cocus,
Car desormais,
Ils n’auront plus chez eux tant de plumets,
Les cajolleurs
Ces diseurs de sornettes;
Font leurs retraites
Et les Amours,
Sont deserte par les bruits des Tambours.

On ne void plus desprits censé,
Tout est renversé
Se Senateur,
Trenche à present du bon gladiateurs
Les Eschevins,
Ont quitté la Police,
Pour la Milice,
Et les Bourgeois
Croient avoir droit de reformer les Loix.
Because Loves
Are scared off by the clamor of drums.

At Place Royale, where many Lovers
Would demonstrate their torments,
Where their fates
Were always soothed by Constantine
One no longer hears many dawn songs there so much
As the songs of muskets,
And Loves
Forevermore have naught but the sound of drums.

The blockade was made of pleasures
To so many crocuses,
Because henceforth
They will not have many plumes in their houses,
The babblers,
These speakers of fibs;
They make their retreats
And Love
Is abandoned by the clamor of drums.

One no longer sees prized spirits
All is reversed
This Senator
Cutting up, at present, good gladiators;
The Sheriffs
Have left the Police
For the militia,
And the Bourgeois
Believe they have the right to reform the Laws.

81

9. La Chanson des Barricades de Paris, composée par six Harangeres
Sur le chant, Lere-lenre, &c.
232

Six vendeuses de poison,
Ont composée la Chanson,
Des Barricades dernieres,
Lere-la, lere-lenlere,
Lere-la, lere-lenla.

Comme ensembles elles beuvoient,
L’une à l’autre se disoient,
Parlons un peu des affaires,
Lere-la, &c.

Une vendeuse de sel,
Dit que Monsieur de Broussel,
Nous estoit fort necessaire,
Lere-la, &c.

Pour le peuple supporter,
Fut en prison arresté
Mail il n’y demeura guere,
Lere-la, &c.

Pour afin de le r’avoir,
Chacun se mit en devoir
Monstrant se qu’ils sçavoient faire
Lere-la, &c.

Car les Bourgeois animez,
Aussi-tost se sont armez
Par une façon guerriere,
Lere-la, &c.

Toutes les Chaines on tendit,
Et les Barricades on fit,
Toimoignant nostre collere,
Lere-la, &c.

Six saleswomen of fish
Composed the Song
Of the last Barricades,
Lere-la, lere-lenlere,
Lere-la, lere-lenla.

Together they drank,
One and all became disoriented,
Speaking a little of some business.
Lere-la…

One saleswoman of salt
Says that Monsieur de Broussel
Was necessary for us.
Lere-la…

For supporting the people,
He was arrested and imprisoned,
But will not be there long.
Lere-la…

In order to see him again,
Each must start their task
Demonstrating what they know how to do
Lere-la…

Because the bourgeois are stirring,
And are straightaway arming themselves
In a warlike manner.
Lere-la…

All the chains we extended
And the barricades we made
Witnessing our anger.
Lere-la…

232
Ballard, vol. 1, 90. Another version in Maurepas, vol. 2, 91.
82

Les Soldats espouventez
De ce voir si-bien traitez
Tournoient le cul en erriere,
Lere-la, &c.

Aussi les Colin Tampon,
233

Estoient froient comme glaçons
Car il ne eroyoient plus boire
Lere-la, &c.

Il estoient bien estonnez,
De voir qu’à coups de pavez,
On cassoit leur cermoniere,
Lere-la, &c.

Et dessus la Melleraye,
On fasoit voller les grez,
Les bastons aussi les pierres,
Lere-la, &c.

Et aussi le Chancellier,
En eut eu plus d’un millier,
Mais il passa la riviere,
Lere-la, &c.

Mais ils ont pour se venger,
Voulu premier aisieger,
Mail il n’y gagnerons guere,
Lere-la, &c.

Bien voir qu’au commencement,
Nous ayons quelque tourment,
Nous sortirons de misere,
Lere-la, &c.

Crions tous de vive foy,
Vive Louis nostre Roy,
Aussi Monseigneur son Frere,
Lere-la, &c.

Puis crions pareillement,
Vive Nostre Parlement,
Qui sont nos Nosseigneurs & Peres,
Lere-la, lere l’en lere,
Lere-la, lere l’en la.

The Soldiers, scared
To see themselves so insulted,
Turned their asses around.
Lere-la…

Also the drummers
Were frozen like ice cubes
Because they could no longer drink
Lere-la…

They were well-shocked
To see, that at the blows of cobblestones,
We broke up their ceremony
Lere-la…

And on top of Melleraye,
We stole the clay,
And the swords, as well as the stones
Lere-la…

And also the Chancellor
Had more than a thousand,
But he passed the river.
Lere-la…

But to avenge themselves,
They wanted to first lay siege,
But they will hardly win anything there.
Lere-la…

Know that at the beginning,
We will have some torment,
We will overcome this misery.
Lere-la…

We all cry long live faith,
Long live Louis, our King,
As well Monseigneur his Brother,
Lere-la…

Then we cry similarly,
Long live our Parlement
Who are our Lords and Fathers.
Lere-la, lere l’en lere,
Lere-la, lere l’en la.

233
According to Cotgrave, “the Drumme-sound of the Suissers march.”
83

10. La chasse donnée à Mazarin, par les Païsans des Bourgs & des Villages,
sur le Tocsain:

Sur le chant de Monceaux.
234

Bourgs, Villes & Villages,
Le Tocsain, il faut sonner,
Rompez tous les passages
Qu’il vouloit ordonner,
Il faut sonner le Tocsain,
Din, din, pour prendre Mazarin.

Nuitamment ce perfide,
A enlevé le Roy
Le cruel merite
Estre mis aux abois,
235

Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Ce meschant plein d’outrage
A ruiné sans deffaut,
Vous tous gens de Village,
Vous donnant des imposts,
Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Mettez-vous sur vos gardes
Chargez bien vos Mousquets,
Armez vous de halbardes,
De picques & corcelets,
Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Vertu-bleu
236
se dit Pierre,
Je n’y veut pas manqué
Car j’ay vendu mes terres
Pour les Tailles payer,
Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Foin de cette bataille
Chez-moy il n’y a plus
Que les quatre muraille
Bourgs, Cities, and Villages,
The alarm bell must ring.
Destroy all the passages
That he wanted to get in order,
Sound the alarm,
Din, din, to catch Mazarin.

By night, this traitor
Kidnapped the king,
The cruel one deserves
To be surrounded by hunting dogs,
Sound the alarm…

This contemptuous villain
Ruined, without error,
You, all the men of the Village,
Giving you taxes.
Sound the alarm…

Be on your guard,
Prepare your muskets,
Arm yourselves with halberds
239

Pikes and corselets.
Sound the alarm…

God damn, says Pierre to himself,
I do not want to miss it
Because I sold my lands
To pay the tailles.
Sound the alarm…

To hell with this battle,
At my house, there is nothing
But four walls,

234
Barbier and Vernillat, 33.
235
According to Cotgrave, it means to be surrounded by dogs with no chance of escape.
236
An old swear word/blasphemous statement that is no longer used

84

Tout mon bien est perdu,
Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Pour payer les Subsites
J’ay vendu mon godet,
Ma poesle & ma marmite
Jusques à mon souffler,
Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Moy pour payer les Tailles
J’ay vendu mes moutons,
Je couches sur la paille
Je n’ay pas le teston,
237

Faut sonner le tocsain, &c.

Taistigué dit Eustache,
J’ay vendu mes Chevaux,
Ma chartuë & mes vaches
Pour payer les imposts,
Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Moy j’ay chose certaine,
Vendu mon gros pourceau,
Mes chevre & mes gelines,
Pour payer les imposts,
Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Coulas prit son espée
Et des piarres en sa main,
Dit faut à la pipée
238

Prendre cét inhumain,
Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Guillaume prit sa fourche,
Et trouça son chapeau,
Il dit faut que je couche
Mazarin au tombeau,
Faut sonner le Tocsain, &c.

Nostre France est ruinée,
Faut de ce Cardinal,
Abreger les années,
Il est auteur de mal
Faut sonner le tocsain
Din, din, pour prendre Mazarin.

All my possessions are lost.
Sound the alarm…

To pay the subsistes
I sold my jug,
My stove and my kettle,
And even my bellows.
Sound the alarm…

Me, to pay the tailles,
I sold my sheep,
I sleep on straw,
I do not have a testoon.
Sound the alarm…

Taistigué, says Eustache,
I sold my horses
My plow and my cows
To pay the taxes.
Sound the alarm…

Me, it’s a sure thing that I
Sold my fat pigs
My goat and my hens
To pay the taxes.
Sound the alarm…

Coulas took his sword
And some stones in his hand,
And says, we must go bird hunting
And take this barbarian.
Sound the alarm…

Guillaume took his pitchfork
And trussed up his hat,
He says, I must put
Mazarin in the tomb.
Sound the alarm…

Our France is ruined,
And it’s this Cardinal’s fault;
To summarize these past years,
He is the author of our woe.
Sound the alarm
Din, din, to catch Mazarin.

237
According to Cotgrave, it is a silver coin worth a sterling
238
References the noises that bird catchers make to lure birds.
85

11. Le Libera de Jules Mazarin, ce meschant perfide Ministre d’Estat:
Sur le chant, des Enfarinez
240

Mazarin instrument du Diable,
Tu nous fais souffrir par tes darts
Te voilà pris comme un renard
De tous costez chacun t’acable,
Mazarin il te faut chanté
Ton Libera me Domine.

Meschant perfide sanguinaire
Monseigneur le Duc de Beaufort
A promis de mettre ton corps,
Tout en cendre & en poussiere,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

L’on sçait toute ta Genealogie,
Tu és le fils d’un simple Marchant:
Tu t’es par ton esprit meschant,
Eslevé par ta tyrannie,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

Tu nous as fait prendre les armes,
Nous te mettrons dans le tombeau,
Le Duc de Beaufort bien dispos,
Te mettra sous la froide lame,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

Le Cardinal Saincte Cecile
Ayant nos Louys d’or enlevé
Ne fut-il pas empoisonné
Comme une chose tres-utile,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

Meschant remply de tyrannie
Ne merite-tu pas la mort,
Il faut que ton infame corps,
Mazarin, instrument of the Devil,
Your darts make us suffer,
Taking you thus as a fox,
From all sides, everyone overcomes you,
Mazarin, you must sing
Your Libera me Domine.

Malicious, bloodthirsty traitor
Monseigneur the Duke of Beaufort
Promised to put your body,
All in ashes and dust,
Mazarin, you must sing…

One knows all your genealogy,
You are the son of a simple merchant:
You are by your very nature nasty,
Elevated by your tyranny,
Mazarin, you must sing…

You made us take up arms,
We will put you in the grave,
The nimble Duke of Beaufort
Will put you under the cold blade.
Mazarin, you must sing…

The Cardinal Saint Cecile
Having stolen our gold Louis
Was he not poisonous?
As a necessary thing,
Mazarin, you must sing…

Nasty and tyrannical,
You do not deserve death,
It is necessary that your infamous body

240
Ballard, vol. 1, 30.
86

Il soit trainé à la voirie,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

Tu as fait enlever hors de France
Nos Pistoles & nos Escus d’or,
Nos Quadruples & nos Louys d’or
Ton corps patira pour l’offence,
Mazarin il faut chanté, &c.

Tu és l’inventeurs des Subsistances,
Le chef des Monopoleurs,
Sur toy nous sommes les vainqueurs,
Te voilà mis en decadance,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

Fus-tu déja à tous les Diables,
Toy & tous les Monopoleurs,
Vous ne portez que du mal-heur
Par vos esprits abominables,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

Tous les diables ont pris les armes
Afin de te bien recevoir
Mais que tu sois dans les Enfers
Proserpine tu auras pour femme,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

Tu trouveras tes Camarades
Dans ces lieux l’ombres & tenebreux
Tu pourras jouer avec eux
Comme estant grand joüeur de cartes,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

Tu as fait languir par tes souffrances
Les Laboureurs & Vignerons,
Ainsi qu’un perfide larron,
N’as-tu pas ruiné nostre France,
Mazarin il te faut chanté, &c.

Tu seras mis dans la fausse noire
Avec tous les Monopoleurs,
Tu ne causera plus de malheurs
Ny de cruauté sanguinaire,
Mazarin il te faut chanté,
D’une voix bien triste & tremblante,
Mazarin il te faut chanté
Ton Libera me Domine.
Be dragged through the dung,
Mazarin, you must sing…

You have sent out of France
Our pistoles and our golden Ecus,
Our Quadruples and our golden Louis
Your body will suffer for the offence,
Mazarin, you must sing…

You are the inventor of the subsistences,
The head of the Monopolizers,
Under you we are the vanquishers,
You will thus be set in ruin,
Mazarin, you must sing…

You were all already Devils,
You and all the monopolizers,
You bring nothing but misfortune
By your abominable spirits,
Mazarin, you must sing…

All the devils took up arms
To receive you well
But when you are in Hell,
You will have Proserpina as a wife,
Mazarin, you must sing…

You will find your Comrades
In these shadowy and gloomy places,
You will be able to play with them
As a great player of cards,
Mazarin, you must sing…

You have made laborers and vintners
Languish with your needs,
Just as a traitorous thief,
Haven’t you ruined our France?
Mazarin, you must sing…

You will be put in the dark pit
With all the monopolizers,
You will not cause any more misery
Nor acts of bloodthirsty cruelty,
Mazarin you must sing
With a sad and trembling voice,
Mazarin you must sing
Your Libera me Domine.

87

12. Chanson nouvelle, de Jules Mazarin, dit je suis l’Arman:

Sur le chant, Ha! La voila, ha la voicy, celle qui charme mon soucy.

Preparons sans craindre rien
Suivons le Duc de Longueville
Il faut amarté Mazarin
Ce Tyran natif de Cycile,
Haro, haro deffus ce Cardinal
Qui ne nous fasse plus mal.

Brison la teste à ce Desmon
Ce nous est un signe effroyable
De voir au lettre de son nom
Je suis Larman si redoubtable,
Haro, haro deffus ce Cardinal
Qui ne nous fasse plus mal.

Dans quelle regne helas sommes nous
N’y a-t’il qu’un Beaufort en France
Duc d’Orleans que faites vous,
Monstré un peu vostre puissance,
Haro, haro deffus, &c.

Vous estes Princes de bonté
Vous estes Seigneur débonnaire
Protegeant nostre liberté
Ferez ce que vous devez faire,
Haro, haro deffus, &c.

Halas Prince que faites vous
Un Cardinal vous fait la guerre
Et vous tenez aupres de nous
Un autre Arman d’estrange terre,
Haro, haro deffus, &c.

Grand Duc monstrez-vous sans pareil
Premier Protecteur de la France
Chassant ce Desmon du Conseil
Vous allegerez nostre souffrance,
Haro, haro deffus, &c.

Et si l’on en parle par fois
Ce n’est que de sa tyrannie
Chassons du nombre des Francçois
Cét Arman natif d’Italie,
Haro, haro deffus, &c.

Disant qu’on veut assasiner
On luy veut donner deux cens gardes
Il ne faut que pour nous ruiner
Qu’un pareil nombre de hallebarde.
Haro haro deffus, &c.

Gaston le people aux abois
We prepare, without fearing anything,
To follow the Duke of Longueville
It is necessary to bind Mazarin,
That tyrant born in Cicily,
Haro, haro defrock this Cardinal
Who will no longer harm us.

We break the head of this Demon
That, to us, is a dreadful sign
To see to the letter of his name
I am the so fearful Arman
Haro, haro defrock this Cardinal
Who will no longer harm us.

In what reign, alas, are we?
Is there but one Beaufort in France?
Duc d’Orelans, what are you doing?
Demonstrate your power just a bit!
Haro…

You are a Prince of generosity
You are good-natured Lords
Protecting our liberty
Do what you have to do
Haro…

Alas Prince, what are you doing?
A Cardinal makes war against you
And you hold on to another
Arman from a foreign land near to us
Haro…

Grand Duc show yourself without equal
First Protector of France
Hunting this Demon of the Council
You will relieve our suffering,
Haro…

And if one speaks of him from time to time
It is about nothing but his tyranny
Hunting many French men,
This Arman, native of Italy,
Haro…

Saying that one wants to assassinate
One wants to give him two hundred guards
To ruin us, one would merely need
The same number of halberds
Haro…

Gaston, the desperate people
88

Remet en vous son esperance
Et tous d’une plaintive voix
Vous demandons quelque allegeance,
Haro haro deffus, &c.

Gaston chasse ce Cardinal
C’est luy qui ruyne nos Provinces:
Il est auther de tout le mal
Et le discord d’entre le Princes,
Haro haro deffus, &c.

Quatre-vingt mulets chargez d’or
Ont déja gaigné sa Province
Ce meschant veut ruiner encor
L’authorité de nostre Prince,
Haro haro deffus, &c.

Assasiner ce Cardinal
C’est gaigner plenier indulgence
Ou bien il fera plus de mal
Qu’un Büillon n’a fait en France,
Haro haro deffus, &c.

Sus persons de coups, Parisiens,
Les tripes de cette Eminence
Il nous les faut jetter aux chiens
Qu’il n’aye des tombeaux en France
Haro haro deffus, &c.

Sur tout conservons nostre Roy
Innocent du mal qu’on nous donne,
Et que tous fasse comme moy
Pour luy conserver sa Couronne,
Haro haro deffus, &c.

Crions vive les fleurs de Lys
Vive nostre Roy débonnaire
Faut graver nos faits inoüis
Dedans le Temple de memoire
Haro, haro deffus ce Cardinal,
Qui ne nous fasse plus de mal.

Put their hopes in you
And all of a plaintive voice
Ask of you some allegiance,
Haro…

Gaston, hunt this Cardinal
It is him who ruins our Provinces:
He is the author of all misery
And the discord between the Princes
Haro…

Eighty mules laden with gold
Have already reached his Province
This villain wants to ruin, again,
The authority of our Prince,
Haro…

To assassinate this Cardinal
Is to attain complete clemency
Or indeed, he will do more harm
Than Büillon did in France,
Haro…

Under the blows, Parisians,
The guts of this Eminence
We must throw them to dogs
So that he will not have a grave in France
Haro…

Above all we preserve our King
Innocent of the wrong that one gives us,
And that all do as I do
To preserve his crown for him,
Haro…

We cry long live the fleurs de Lys
Long live our good-natured King
We must carve our amazing acts
In the temple of memory
Haro, haro defrock this Cardinal,
Who will no longer harm us.

89

13. Suplication a monsieur le Prince, de quitter le party Mazarinistes:
sur le chant, Bachus est l’Amour ce Vollages
Prince gardez que voste haine
Ne vous fasse beaucoup de peine,
Sans fruict & satisfaction,
Si vous joüez de vostre reste
Dieu qui sçait vostre intention
Vous là rendra toute funeste.

Quel abus a séduit cette ames,
Qu’on void jadis dans les alarmes
Cueillirs tant d’ilustres l’Auriers
Faut-il que pour une s’ensuë
Le plus vaillant de nos guerriers
En voulant nous tuër ce tuë.

Quittez la cause Mazarine
Prince de peur que sa ruyne
Ne vous fasse tomber aussi,
Venez vous joinder à vostre frere
Le sang de Grand Montmorancy
Fait que tout Paris vous revere.

La pauvre France est d’esolée
De voir ces filles violée
Les Temples mesmes prophanez
Si jusque au coeur vos traits la blessent
Mourant des coups que vous donnez
Qu’elle doit ester sa tristesse.

Vostre païs vous fait ces plaintes,
Le Païsant fremit de craintes
Le Laboureur au desespoir
Abandonne ces meteries,
Et celà ne peut esmouvoir
Vostre coeur remply de furie.

Si vous vous destruisez vous mesme
Vostre mal n’est pas moins extresme
Que celuy du pauvre indigent
Conservez le peu qui demeure,
Il ne vous passera pas l’an
Si vous le mengez a cette heure.

Ces Lys qui font ces dignes marques
De la candeur de nos Monarques
Flestrissent au sang des innocens,
Louis Prince plein de sagesse
Les soustient de son bras puissant
Et le vostre aujourd’huy les blessent

Ce monstre issue de l’Italie
Le matin de l’Espiphanie,
A la rigueur de la saison
Prince, careful that your hate
Does not cause you a lot of pain,
Without revenue and satisfaction
If you continue to play,
God, who knows your intention,
Will make you all unlucky there.

What abuse seduced this soul,
That one sees formerly in the call to arms
To gather so many illustrious laurels,
He must, so that for an ensuing
Of the most valiant of our soldiers
In wanting to kill us, kill it.

Quit the Mazarine cause
Prince, that the fear that his ruin
Does not make you fall as well,
Come and join your brother
The blood of Grand Montmorancy
Makes it so that all of Paris reveres you.

Poor France is devastated
To see these girls raped
The Temples, even, profaned
If, to the heart, your arrows hurt it
Dying under the blows that you give
France must endure in sadness.

Your country makes complaints to you,
The Peasant trembling with fears
The Laborer in despair
Abandons his materials
And this cannot move
Your fury-filled heart.

If you destroy yourself
Your misery is not less extreme
Than that of the poor pauper
Conserve the little that lasts,
He will not pass you the year
If you eat it at this time.

The Lys that make the noble marks
Of the candor of our Monarchs
Droop with the blood of innocents,
Prince Louis full of wisdom
Sustains them in his powerful arms
And yours, today, hurts them.

This monster from Italy
The morning of Epiphany,
Having no other recourse this season
90

Il exposa cette victim,
Sur l’Autel de la trahison
Pour nous mieux paslier son crime.

Pour mieux destruire nos Provinces
Pour esblouïr les yeux des Princes,
Tu faits un Rapt digne de toy,
Pour render un innocent rebelle
Tu nous enleve nostre Roy
En nous faisant une querelle.

Vous Reyne pour qui nos sufrages
Ont rendu tant de tesmoignages
De l’amour qu’on avoit pour vous
Vous eustent un Roy par nos prieres
Pourquoy l’oster de la maniere.

Gaston faut-il qu’un people voye
Que vous eovrez apres la proye,
Et protegez le rauisseur
Vostre ame si chere à la France
Partageant le gain du voleur,
Partagera la recompence.

Si Louis Prince débonnaire
Estoit encore dessus la terre,
Et ce tigre chez les Romains,
La Rivierre seroit tairie,
Ils n’auroient pas emplis leurs mains
Pour les vuider en Italie.
Exposed this victim,
On the Altar of treason
In order to better hide his crime.

To better destroy our Provinces
To cast a mist before the eyes of the Princes,
You make an abduction worthy of you,
To give back an innocent rebel
You remove our King from us
In quarreling with us.

You Queen, for whom our sufferings
Rendered so much testimony
Of the love that one had for you
You bore a King by our prayers,
Why take off with him in this manner?

Gaston is it necessary that the people see
That you chase after the prey
And protect the abductor
Your soul, so dear to France,
Sharing the profit of that theft
Will share in the recompense.

If the good-natured Prince Louis
Was once again on land,
And this tiger back with the Romans,
The River would be quiet,
They would not fill their hands
To empty them in Italy.

91

14. Chanson nouvelle sur la genereuse resolution d’une Fille, qui veut mourir
pour le service du Roy & sa patrie, & comme elle prend les Armes à se sujet:

sur le chant, Elle est revenuë Denise
241

Une fille d’aupres de la Tournelle
S’est voulu enrooler,
Se promettent de faire des merveilles,
Faisant d’elle parler,
A pris party pour aller a l’Armée,
Elle s’en est en allez Jeanne,
Elle s’en est allee.

Elle a juré devant beaucoup de monde,
Et aussi ses parents,
Qu’elle vouloit estre une vraye seconde,
Pucelle d’Orleans,
Aussie bien qu’elle elle manira l’espee,
Elle s’en est en allee, &c.

Elle a juré par l’espée qu’elle porte
Que s’estoit son dessein,
Qu’elle accommoderoit de bonne sorte,
Le Cardinal Nazin,
Car contre luy elle est forte animée
Elle s’en est allée, &c.

Pour mon bon Roy & ma chere patrie,
Je m’en vais batailler,
Je perdray cent fois plutost la vie,
Qu’on me voye reculer,
Car au comabat je suis bien preparée,
Elle s’en est, &c.

Elle faisoit dix mille caracolles
Montée sur son Cheval,
Disant je seray faire des cabriolles
Aux gens du Cardinal,
D’un bon Fuzil elle sera équipée
A girl from outside Tournelle
Wanted to enlist,
Promising herself to do marvels,
Making herself do the talking,
She decided to go to the army,
She went there herself, Jeanne,
She went there herself.

She swore in front of many people,
And also her kinsmen,
That she wanted to be a true support,
Virgin from Orleans,
And also that she will manage a sword well
She went there herself…

She swore by the sword that she carries
That it was her plan,
That she would give a good beating to
That Cardinal Nazin,
Because she is very actively against him
She went there herself…

For my good King and my dear country
I will go to battle,
I will lose my life a hundred times and more,
Before one sees me retreat,
Because I am well-prepared for combat,
She went there herself…

She has done ten thousand caracoles
Mounted on her horse,
Saying I will do cabrioles
On the Cardinal’s men,
She will be equipped with a good gun,

241
Maurepas, “Elle est revenue Dame Anne,” vol. 2, 455.
92

Elle s’en est allée, &c.

Marchant sous la genereuse conduite
Du Grand Duc de Beaufort,
Aux ennemis seray prendre la suite,
Où les metray à mort,
Et fuiront comme brebis esgaree,
Elle s’en est, &c.

Je ne seray jamais une poltronne
Je le feray bien voir,
Car jour & nuict faut que je me sçavonne
J’en ay bien le vouloir,
De l’ennemy je seray redoutée
Elle s’en est, &c.

Les Pistolet a l’arçon de la Seelle
Les bottes & les esprons,
Le juste au corps plumme belle d’enteile
Avec les gros boutons,
De beaux galans elle est bien a justee
Elle s’en est, &c.

Jamais Roger, Olyvier de Castile,
Roland Richard sans peur,
Ne fera mieux que fera cette Fille,
Car elle a trop de coeur,
Le saint Balmond ne sera plus estimée
Elle s’en est, &c.

Car elle veut que d’elle chacun parle.
Et se sont ses souhaits,
Qu’elle soit mises dedans les Analles
Parlant de ses hauts faits,
Que la France luy sera obligée,
Elle s’en est en allée Jeanne
Tout droit de l’Armée.

She went there herself…

Following the fertile path
Of the Great Duc de Beaufort,
She will pursue enemies
Where she will put them to death,
And they will flee like lost sheep,
She went there herself…

I will never be a coward,
I will make him see,
Because day and night I must know
That I have that desire,
I will be feared by the enemy,
She went there herself…

With pistols in the saddletree,
Riding boots and spurs,
And a well-tailored uniform
With big buttons,
She is well-adjusted to gallantry
She…

Roger, Olivier de Castile,
Roland Richard without fear,
Will never do better than this Girl,
Because she has so much heart,
Saint Balmond will not be held in higher esteem,
She…

Because she wants everyone to speak of her.
And it is her wish
That the annals
Speak of her lofty achievements,
France will be indebted to her,
She went there herself, Jeanne,
Straight to the Army.

93

15. L’Adieu de Mazarin à la France, & la Confession qu’il a fait de toute ses
fourberies, auparavant son départ:

sur le chant, Pourquoy cher Celedon, &c.

Adieu braves François,
Si Noble & si Courtois,
Il faut que je vous quitte
Je me vais retirer,
Mais mon esprit est triste
De vous abandoner.

Devant que de partir,
Je vous veux advertir,
De tous les volleries,
Que j’ay fait en ce lieu,
Voulant par tiranies
Par tout mettre le feu.

N’ay-je pas un grant tort,
Ravir vostre support,
Louys le Roy de France,
Et de nuict l’enlevé,
De ma grande arrogance,
Je ne m’en puis sauvé.

Deplus à Charanton,
De ce Grand Chastillon,
De sa mort je suis cause,
Voulant par trahison,
Faire bien autre chose,
En ruynant les Maisons.

L’on vognois mon sçavoir,
Car c’est tout mon vouloir
Des guaster tout la France,
Mais l’on c’est apperceu
De mon intelligence,
Dont m’en voilà déçeu.

Plusieurs ay fait languir,
Et des armées perir,
Par ma folle sntreprises,
J’ay le Grand Gassion,
Sans nulle autre remises
Fait tuer en trahison.

J’ay dedans & dehors,
Ravy tous les thresors
De cette pauvre France,
Et les Parisiens
Reduit en decadence,
Ravissant leur moyens.

Farewell brave Frenchmen,
So noble and so courteous,
I must leave you
I am going to retire,
But my spirit is sad
To abandon you.

Before I part,
I want to warn you
About all of the thefts
That I committed in this place,
Wanting by tyrannies
To set fire everywhere.

Have I not committed grave offense in
Kidnapping your support,
Louis the King of France,
And at night, abducting him;
Of my huge arrogance,
I am not then saved

Further, at Charanton
Of the Grand Chastillon,
Of the death that I caused,
Wanting by treason
To do another thing,
In ruining the Houses.

One saw my plans,
Because all I desire is
To ruin all of France,
But one had a glimpse
Of my intelligence,
And thus thwarted me.

Some were made to languish,
And the armies perish,
By my crazy enterprises,
I had the Grand Gassion
Killed in treason
Without delay.

I have, without and within,
Taken all the treasures
Of this poor France,
And reduced
The Parisians to ruin,
Making off with their goods.

94

Les pauvres villageois,
Ay reduit aux abbois,
Et dedans la misere,
Où ils sont maintenant,
Dans leur douleur amere,
Il me vont maudisant.

Pay voulu affamer,
Affin de ruyner
Paris la bonne ville,
Mon dessein disloyal
C’est trouvé inutille,
En exentant ce mal.

Je ne sçay où tourné,
Car je suis condamné
Que si quelqu’un m’avise
Il me feront mourir,
En faisant à leur guise,
Me faut ainsi perir.

N’ayant nul reconfort,
N’y point de passeport,
Je ne sçay où pretendre,
De me pouvoir sauver.
Enfin me faut attendre,
De me desesperer.

J’espere dans l’Enfer,
Avec que Lucifer,
Y faire mon entrée,
Et tous les Diablotins,
A ma belle arrivée
Y feront des festins.

Vous faut les armes en main
Tuër ce Mazarin,
Ce monster detestable
Sus courage François,
D’un Coeur tres-aymable
Mettons l’ay aux abbois.

Paravant mon depart:
Me faudra tost où tart,
Mourir de mort estrange,
Car je suis destiné
D’estre mis dans les fanges
Pour y ester traisné.
The poor villagers,
Were reduced to ashes,
And in the misery,
Where they are now,
In their bitter sadness,
They will go on cursing me.

I wanted to starve the country,
And similarly ruin
Paris, the good city,
My disloyal plan
Proved incapable of
Executing this misery.

I do not know where to turn,
Because I am condemned,
If someone approaches me
They will kill me,
In doing as they please,
I must thus perish.

Not having any reassurance,
Nor any passport,
I do not know where to seek
To save myself.
In the end, I must wait
Until I despair.

I hope, in Hell
With Lucifer,
To make my entrance there,
And that all the imps,
At my beautiful arrival,
Will make feasts.

You need weapons in hand
To kill this Mazarin,
This detestable monster,
With French courage,
And a very-loving heart,
Put his back against the wall.

Before my departure:
I must, sooner or later,
Die a harsh death,
Because I am destined
To be put in the muck
To be dragged about.

95

16. La vie & la mort de Monsieur de Clanleu, Gouverneur de Charaton,
lequel fut tué dans la Bataile au grand regret des Parisiens:

sur le chant, Pauvre Pescheurs resveillez-vous, &c.

Pleurons honorables François,
Nostre bon General,
Qu’estoit de Clanleu si courtois,
Nostre amy & loyal,
Qui fut tué à Charanton,
Aussi-bien que Monsieur de Chastillon.

Il a servy le Roy Louys,
Dedans les Pays-bas,
Montrant à tous nos ennemis,
La valeur de son bras,
A Courtray & mesme allieur,
Il a montré son insigne valeur.

A Bergue & Ipre mesmement
Il fait de beaux exploits,
Faisant bien voir à ces Flamands,
Et à ces Dunkerquois,
Que pour son bon Roy sans tarder
Sa vie dans ces lieux vouloit hazarder.

A Furnes, & au Fort Mardik,
Ce vaillant Conducteur,
Sur la mer parut fort hardy,
Faisant de la terreur,
Aux Vaisseaux qui vouloient entrer
Dedan, la place pour la seconder.

Monseigneur le Duc d’Orleans,
Voyant qu’il avoit fait,
En homme sage & bien prudent,
Luy donna cét endroit,
Pour en ester le Gouverneur,
L’appuy & aussi le vray deffenseur.

A Dunkerque pareillement,
Ce Genereux Seigneur:
Se battoit tousjours vaillamment
Dedans les lieux d’honneur,
Mais falloi-il qu’à Charanton,
Estre tué par un meschant poltron.

A Diximud il y a deux ans,
Qui le prit pour certain,
Devant Léopold & ses gens,
Va Jeudy au matin,
Et dont il en fut Gouverneur
Pour son courage & aussi son grand coeur.

Et au bout de huict jours apres
We honorable Frenchmen cry for
Our good General,
Who was the very courteous Cleanleu,
Our friend and ally,
Who was killed a Charanton,
As well as Monsieur de Chastillon.

He served King Louis,
In the Pays-bas,
Showing all of our enemies,
The valor of his arms,
At Courtray and elsewhere,
He showed his remarkable valor.

At Bergue and Ipre similarly
He made wonderful exploits,
Making these Flemmish and
Dunkerkans see
That for his good king, without delay,
He willingly risked his life in these places.

At Furnes and at Fort Mardik,
This valliant leader,
On the sea he seemed quite bold,
Bringing terror
To the vessels who wanted to enter
Dedan, the place to offer reenforcements.

Monseigneur the Duc d’Orleans,
Seeing what he had done,
A sage and sensible man,
Gave him this place,
To be the Governor,
The supporter and also the true defender.

At Dunkerk similarly,
This generous lord
Always battled valiantly
In these places of honor,
But did he need, at Charanton,
To be killed by a nasty coward?

Two years ago at Diximud,
Who took him for certain
In front of Leopold and his men,
He goes Thursday morning,
And thus he was Governor
For his courage as well as his big heart.

And after eight days,
96

Léopold vint Camper,
Devant la Ville tout exprés,
Afin de l’assieger,
Où alors Monsieur de Clanleu,
Faisoit des furieuses sortis sur eux.

Ce Guerrier soustin dix-huict jours,
Comme un vaillant Soldat,
D’un fort beau zele & plein d’Amour
Donnant force combats,
Dedans l’Armée & dans leurs Camp
Taillant en piece d’aucun Regiment.

Il luy falut au mesme temps
Bien-tost capituler
Voyant qui n’y avoit nullement
Quasiment de quartier,
Car pour les Soldats qu’il avoit
Furent tous prisonniers dans cet endroit.

Aprés celà il s’en-alla
Trouvé lors Gassion,
Le supplier qui l’envoya,
A Louys de Bourbon,
Lettre escripte de sa main
Que la ville estoit rendue pour certain.

Gassion escript promptement
Une lettre au Roy,
Qui s’estoit battu vaillamment
Ayant par plusieurs-fois,
Fait des sortys sur l’ennemy
En montrant qi n’estoit pas endormy.

Mais tout celà n’empescha-pas
Le mal-heureux dessein
De ce perfide & ce Judas,
Qu’on nomme Mazarin,
Car il le fit mettre en prison
Par une noire & mauvaise intention.

Dedans Amiens fut un an,
Retenu prisonnier
Mais les barricades arrivant
Si-tost fit supplier
Tous nos Seigneurs de Parlement
Pour leur montrer qu’il estoit innocent.

Le Parlement ayant connu
Point de mal à son fait
Aussi-tost il s’est resolu
Qu’il faloit en effet
Que le Cardinal Mazarin,
Contre luy eut quelque mauvais dedain.

Il le fit forty de prison
Leopold came to Camper,
Deliberately in front of whole City,
So as to besiege it,
Where so M. De Clanleu
Led furious sorties against them.

This warrior lasted eighteen days,
Like a valiant soldier,
With a wonderful zeal and full of love
Giving fierce combats,
Inside the Army and in the camp
Cutting to pieces any regiment.

It was necessary for him at the same time
To soon capitulate
Seeing that he did not have practically
Any quarter,
Because for the soldier that he had
Were all prisoners in that place.

After that he went out
And so found Gassion
And begged that he would send
To Louis of Bourbon
A letter written in his hand
That the city was finished for certain.

Gassion promptly wrote
A letter to the King,
Who was himself valiantly fighting
Having on multiple occasions,
Made sorties on the enemy
In showing that he was not asleep.

But none of that prevented
The unfortunate plan
Of this traitor and this Judas
That one names Mazarin,
Because he had him thrown in prison
With a dark and evil intention.

He was inside Amiensil for one year,
Kept a prisoner
But the barricades, arriving
So early, begged
Our Lords of Parlement
To show them that he was innocent.

Parlement, having known
That he had done no wrong,
Immediately resolved
That he needed to, in effect,
Have an especial disdain
For the Cardinal Mazarin.

He was made strong by prison
97

Comme estant innocent
Et luy d’une bonne action,
Vint salüer humblement
Le Parlement dedans Paris,
Durant que le siege y estoit donc mis.

Lors Charanton estant à nous
Ces messieurs luy ont dit
Nous desiront que ce soit vous
Qui nous serve d’appuy
Et mesmement de Gouverneur
Car nous sçavons qu’avez un tres-grand Coeur.

Et cét honneste homme emmena
Les Regiments levez
Et dans le Bourg il ordonna,
Comme ils furent arrivez
Les postes qui devoient tenir
Afin de voir les ennemis venir.

Il fut environ quinze jours,
Sans qui l’aperceut rien
Mais une nuict tout à l’entour
Le Prince estoit sondain,
Et le matin estant venu
Clanleu & ses gens les ont reconnus.

Le Prince advança le premier
Et ce grand Chastillon,
Mais voicy douze Fuziliers,
Qui tiroient tout de bon
Sur eux & aussi sur leurs gens
Dont ce Seigneur fut mis au monument.

De Condé voyant ce mal-heur
S’en-vint fort rudement
De tous costez donnant terreur,
A tous les Habitans
Car l’un s’enfuyoit dessus l’eau
Et les autres dans des petits beateaux.

Clanleu estant dessus le pont
Il se vid entourer
De plusieurs coquins & poltronds
Qui vouloient l’attraper
Mais luy à coups de pistolets
Tüa six Mazarins & six Polonois.

Un Sergent traistre & pervers
Luy donna dans les rains
Un coup qui le mit à l’envers
Et tomba pour certain
Lors il s’écria ô mon Dieu,
Pardon je vous demande dans ce lieu.

A Jesus-Christ recommanda,
In being innocent
And to him, rightly so,
Came the Parlement of Paris
To humbly greet him,
During which time the siege was thus started

While Charanton belonged to us,
These lords said to him:
We want it to be you
That serves us as both
Support and Governor
Because we know that you have a large heart.

And this honest man led
The raised Regiments
And in the village he dictated,
As they arrived,
The posts that they needed to keep
So as to see the enemies come.

They did not see anything
For about fifteen days,
But one night, all around,
The Prince was suddenly there,
And the morning came
Clanleu and his men recognized them.

The Prince advanced first
And this grand Chastillon,
But there were twelve riflemen
Who all shot well
On them, and also on their men,
Thus this Lord was given a monument.

Conde, seeing this misfortune,
Came at him harshly
From all sides, giving terror
To all the habitants,
Because one fled into the water
And others into some little boats.

Clanleu, being on the bridge
He was surrounded
By many scoundrels and cowards
Who wanted to trap him,
But he, with his pistol,
Killed six Mazarins and six Polishmen.

A traitorous and perverse Sargent
Shot him in the back,
Which put him to the ground,
And he fell for certain,
While he cried ‘O my God,
I ask you pardon in this place.’

To Jesus Christ, I commend
98

Son ame & son esprit
Priant la Vierge à son trespass
Avec un Coeur contrit
De luy vouloir faire ce don
De ses pechez avoir remission.

His soul and his spirit,
Praying to the Virgin at his death
With a contrite heart,
To be willing to grant
The forgiveness of his sins.

99

17. Les Regrets de Madame de Chatillon, sur la mort de son cher Espoux:

sur le chant, Que de tristesse & de deuïl, &c.

O! Quelle grande pitié,
Je reçois dedans mon ame,
De voir ma chere moitié,
Reduit sous la froide lame.

C’est ce grand de Chatillon,
Qui a tant fait de vaillance,
En plusieurs occasions
Servant bien le Roy de France.

Il estoit le grand mignon,
De Condé chose asseurée
Mais pour luy à Charanton,
Fut tüé dans la meslée.

Faloit-il qu’il entreprit,
Une Guerre illegitime,
Contre ces meilleurs amis,
Qui en ont tant fait d’estisme.

Qu’est la cause de sa mort
C’est ce mal-heureux infame:
Qui a fait par-tout grand tort,
Dont tout le monde le blasme.

C’est ce traistre Cardinal,
Commanda d’aller reprendre,
Comme un Desmon infernal
Charanton sans plus attendre.

Alors mon cher Espoux dit
D’une parole agreable,
Faut-il que je me soit mis
Du costé d’un miserable.

En proferant ce discours,
Il falut à l’heure mesme,
Quitter là toute la Cour,
Avec un regret exitesme.

Estant au Bourg arrivé,
On commença à ce battre,
Où plusieurs furent tüés
Dedans ce furieux desastre.

En combattant il disoit
O! mon Dieu qu’elle querelle?
Voir François, contre François,
Que cette Guerre est cruelle.

Au mesme temps il receut
O! What huge pity
I receive in my soul,
To see my dear other-half
Cut down by the cold blade.

It is this lord of Chastillon,
Who, valliantly, did so much
And on so many occasions,
To well-serve the King of France.

He was the great favorite
Of Conde, assuredly,
But for him at Charanton,
He was killed in the melee.

Did he need to start
An illegitimate war
Against his best friends,
Who so often esteemed him?

What is the cause of his death?
It is this vile misfortune:
Who did, everywhere, great wrongdoing,
Thus all the world blames him.

It is this traitor Cardinal,
Who gave the order to go take back,
Like an infernal demon,
Charanton without delay.

So my dear Husband said,
With agreeable words,
Is it necessary that I set myself
On the side of this miserable-one?

In profaning this discourse,
It was necessary at the hour even
To abandon there all the court,
With a deadly regret.

Arriving at the village,
One started to fight
Where many were killed
Amidst this furious disaster.

In fighting, he said
O, my God, what quarrel?
To see Frenchmen against Frenchmen,
How this war is cruel.

At the same time he received
100

Un coup dans le petit ventre,
Et tomba toute estendu,
Ne se pouvant plus deffendre.

Puis après on le porta,
Dedans le Bois de Vincenne,
Où la Vierge il reclama
Qu’elle eut esgard à sa peyne.

En mourant il regrettoit
La faute par luy commise
Mais qui n’avoit pû jamais,
Refusé cette entreprise.

Il dit encore une fois,
Faloit-il faire la Guerre,
Contre les pauvres François,
Qui souffre tant de misere.

Il faloit mieux s’en-allé
La faire dans l’Angleterre,
Pour la saincte Foy planté,
Que n’on pas contre nos freres.

Il demanda humblement,
Pardon de sa grande offence
Faites à ce grand Parlement,
Qui est le premier de France.

Voilà comme il trespassa
En prononçant ces paroles,
Ces bas monde il delaissa
A-Dieu son ame s’envole.

Aussi son propre Cousin,
Fut tué dans cette attaque,
Dés le Lundy au matin,
Et plusieurs de grand remarque.

Et moy Dame de renom,
On m’apporta la nouvelle
De la mort do Chastillon,
Mon cher Espoux tres-fidelle.

C’est ce meschant Cardinal
Qui a cette mort causée
Que mon bon mary loyal,
Ma ainsi tost delaissée.

Je pris Dieu de le placer
Dedans la gloire Eternelle
Et vouloir recompenser
Mon bien aymé mon fidelle.

A cut in the gut,
And he fell all spread out,
Not long being able to defend himself.

After that we carried him,
Inside the Bois de Vincenne,
Where the Virgin reclaimed him
That she had seen his pain.

In dying, he regretted
The fault committed by him
But who had not ever been able
To refuse this undertaking.

He says one more time,
Must one make war
Against the poor French,
Who suffer so much misery?

It would be better to go
And make war in England,
In order to plant the holy Faith
That we do not have against our brothers.

I asked humbly,
Forgiveness for his grave offense,
Made against this great Parlement,
Which is the most important in France.

See thus how he trespassed
In pronouncing these words,
This lowly world he left,
His soul ascended to God.

Also his proper Cousin
Was killed in this attack,
Starting Monday morning,
In addition to many other remarkable men.

And me, a lady of renown,
One brought me the news
Of the death of Chastillon,
My dear very-faithful Husband.

It is this nasty Cardinal
Who caused the death
Of my good, loyal spouse,
I, thus, too soon abandoned.

I ask God to place him
In his Eternal Glory,
And reward
My well-loved one, my faithful one.

101

18. Les Adieux qu’à fait Monsieur de Chastillon avant que de mourir, à sa
Mere & à sa Femme:

sur le chant, O! mort, tres-rigoureuse mort, &c.

A Dieu, ma chere mere adieu,
A dieu donc ma bien aymée femme,
Il me faut quitter ce bas lieu,
Pour à Dieu rendre ma pauvre ame,
Si en mourant j’ay un regret
J’en ay un tres-juste sujet.

Ce n’est pas que je crains la mort,
Car je sçay qu’il faut que je meure,
Mais c’est que j’ay un grand remort,
Que l’on m’en a advencée l’heure,
Dans un Combat où j’ay esté
N’en n’ayant pas la volonté.

Helas! Ce fut à Charanton,
Où on donna une Bataille,
Qu’à cette injuste occasion,
Que j’ay trouvé mes funerailles,
Mais de mon funeste trepas,
Ha! Coupable je ne suis pas.

Car le seul sujet principal,
De la Bataille mal-heureuse,
Ce fut le meschant Cardinal,
Dont l’ame trop embitieuse,
Commanda sans nul raison
Qu’on alla prendre Charanton.

C’estoit le Prince de Condé,
Qui estoit Chef de l’entrerprise,
A moy il me viens commandé
De me trouver à cette prise,
Dieu sçayt que mon intention
N’estoit point à cette action.

Car en mon Coeur je connoisois,
Que c’estoit une grande follie,
De faire la guerre aux François
Estant tous de mesme patrie,
Ce Combat je ne pouvois fuïr
Car il me faloit obeïr.

Adieu donc puissant Roy Louys
Adieu Monarque débonnaire,
Dieu vueille un jour un Paradis
Je vous voye aussi vostre Frere,
Si j’ay un regret de mourir
C’est ne vous pouvant plus servir.

Si mon trespas j’eus rencontré
Goodbye, my dear mother, goodbye,
Goodbye as well, my well-loved wife,
I must leave this lowly place,
In order to render my poor soul to God,
If in dying I have one regret,
I have a very just subject.

It is not that I fear death,
Because I know I must die,
But it is that I have a great remorse,
That one hastened my final hour,
In a combat where I was
There against my desire.

Alas! It was at Charanton,
Where one gave a Battle,
That at this unjust occasion,
I found my funeral,
But at my dire death,
Ha! I am not guilty.

Because the sole principal subject
Of the unfortunate battle,
It was the nasty Cardinal
Thus the too-ambitious soul
Commanded without reason
That one go take Charanton.

It was the Prince of Conde,
Who was the leader of this enterprise,
He came to find me
And commanded me in this taking,
God knows that my intention
Was not in favor of this action.

Because in my heart, I knew
That it was a great mistake
To make war with Frenchmen,
Being all of the same country;
This combat I could not flee,
Because I had to obey.

Goodbye, thus, powerful King Louis
Goodbye good-natured Monarch,
God hopes one day in Paradise
I will see you and also your Brother;
If I have one regret in dying,
It is not being able to serve you more.

If I met my death
102

Dedans une occasion bonne,
Je prendrois la mort plus à gré
Que pour une prise poltronne,
Que le Cardinal Mazarin,
Mouroit avoir à perte ou gain.

Ma grande consolation,
Quittant cette vie terrienne,
C’est que j’ay la Religion
Qui est la meilleur & certaine,
Où on peut son salus trouver
Et avec elle se sauver.

Je ne serois plus prolonger
Car il faut que mon ame expire,
Je prie Dieu me vouloir loger
Là haut dans son Celeste Empire
Je meurs bien resout & contant,
De tous mes pechez repentant.

Je vous presente mes adieux,
Ma Femme & Mere bien aymée
Dieu vueille qu’un jour dans les Cieux,
Que nos trois ames soient placés,
Pour le loüer incessamment
Plein d’un parfaict contentement.

In a good occasion,
I would take death willingly,
That for a cowardly taking,
For the Cardinal Mazarin,
I died for his gain.

My great consolation,
Leaving this earthly life,
Is that I had Religion
Which is the best and most certain,
Where one can find one’s salvation
And with it save oneself.

I would not prolong my life any longer,
Because my soul must expire,
I ask God to house me
There, high in his Celestial Empire.
I die well resolute and happy,
All of my sins repented.

I present you by goodbyes,
My well-loved Wife and Mother,
God see that one day in Heaven
Our three souls are placed,
To praise him incessantly,
Full of a perfect happiness.

103

19. L’aparision de l’esprit de Monsieur le Duc de Chatillon, au Prince de
Condé:

Sur le chant, Je fuis vostre beauté, &c.

Avant que l’oeil du Tour
Eut commencé son tour,
Et que la nuit, qui nous livre au sommeil,
Nous eut remis dans les bras du resveil,
On rendoit au repos,
Ce que nature avoit mis en despost,
Mais dans l’estat de ce silence
L’esprit bat les corps
De differans remords.

Le Duc de Chastillon,
Qui fut à Charanton,
Pour l’interdit, d’un Ministre o dieux
Blessé à mort d’u coup injurieux
Sortis de son Tombeau,
Demy couvert de son triste l’embeau,
Pour remontrer à un grand Prince:
Le comble d’orreur,
Où monte sa fureur.

Prince dis cette esprit
D’un accent tres-hardy,
Vous cognoissez, que jour vous avoir creu,
Chastillon à des morts le nombre acreu
Voyez à quoy me sert,
Le vain support que vous m’aviez offert.
Puis que la mort par sa puissance
Oste les Lauriers,
Des Illustres Guerriers.

J’estois bien abusé,
De n’avoir mesprisé,
Tous vos presens, comme un apas fatal,
D’où d’escrivoit la source de mon mal
Helas! Si j’eusse creu,
N’en remporter que ce que j’ay reçeu
Vous n’avriez pas par artifices
Contre la raison
Fait armer Chastillon.

Dans le sang des François,
Contre-venez les Loix,
Vous flestrissez, ces Lauriers plains d’effroy
Que vous cueillaste à Lens & a Rocroy,
Vous tachez vostre Nom,
Et faites tort à celuy de Bourbon,
Montmorancy aura la honte,
De voir ses nepueux
Prendre un party honteux.
Before the eye of Tour
Started its tour,
And the night, which delivers us to sleep,
Put us back in the arms of wakefulness,
One returned to rest,
That which nature had put in submission,
But in the state of that silence
The spirit beats the body
With remorses.

The Duc de Chastillon,
Who was at Charanton,
For the interdiction of a Minister, o God,
Fatally wounded by an injurious blow,
Went out from his Tomb,
Half covered in his sad tatters,
To show himself again to a noble Prince:
The height of horror
Where his furor mounted.

Prince, says this spirit,
In a very brash accent,
‘You know, that day you have believe
That Chastillon has death in great numbers,
You see what good I am,
The vain support that you offered me.
Then that death, by his power,
Removed the Laurels
Of the illustrious Warriors.

I was well-abused
To not have contempt,
All your gifts, like a fatal charm,
From where was written the source of my misery
Alas! If I have grown,
Not to bring bck that which I received
You would not have, not by artifices
Against reason,
Armed Chastillon.

In the blood of Frenchmen,
Against which comes the Law,
You wither, these Laurels full of dread,
That you pluck at Lens and at Rocroy,
You stain your name,
And make wrong that of Bourbon,
Montmorancy will be ashamed
To see his nephews
Take a shameful party.
104

Mais encor n’estre rien,
Pour un Prince Chrestien,
Que de songer, a dresser des Autels
Aux faux honneurs que cherchent les mortels,
Craignez un Souverain
Plus grand que vous, & redoutez sa main,
Si a punir elle est trop lante
Son bras tout puissant
N’en est pas moins pesant.

Pouvez-vous bien sans peur,
Sans crainte & sans frayeur,
Paroistre un jour, devant un Dieu Puissant,
Avec un bras rougy de vostre sang
Grand Prince où fuyrez-vous,
De quelle forte esviter son couroux
Estant dessus, de toute asile,
Il n’est point de lieu
Contre l’Ire d’un Dieu.

But again it is nothing,
For a Christian Prince,
But to bleed, to erect some altars
To false honors that mortals seek,
You fear a Sovereign
Greater than you and fear his hand,
If to punish, it is too slow
His all-powerful arm
Is no less oppressive.

Can you, without fear,
Without terror and without dread,
Appear one day, before a powerful God,
With an arm red with your blood?
Great Prince, where do you flee?
Of what strength does your rage avoid,
Being on, of all refuge,
It is not a place
Against the ire of a God.

105

20. Les trahysons de Mazarin descouverte; Avec Salvé Regina, & l’Inmanus,
qu’il doit chanter à la mort:
Sur le chant, De Lampon, &c.
242

Faudra pour punitions, (bis)
De toutes mes trahysons, (bis)
Qu’en tres-belle Compagnie
Salve Regina je die,
Deplus, deplus,
Et aussi mon Inmanus

Je suis pauvre Cardinal,
On veut que je fasse un bal,
Dont la pitoyable dence
Se fera à la potence,
Deplus, deplus
En disant mon Inmanus

Qui fait que je suis hay,
C’est que j’ay par trop trahy,
Car j’ay causé que la France,
Est en une grande souffrance,
Faudra, faudra,
Chanter Salvé Regina

J’ay enlevé tout l’argent,
Qui rend le peuple indigent,
J’ay tant fait de Monopoles,
Et tant vollé de pistoles,
Qui faudra, qui faudra
Chanter Salvé Regina

N’avois-je pas un grand tort,
Tenir Monsieur de Beaufort:
Dedans le Bois de Vincenne,
Mais j’en porteray la peine,
Me faudra, me faudra,
Chanter Salvé Regina
It will be necessary as a punishment
For all of my treasons,
That in very-beautiful Company
Salve Regina, I say
Another, another,
And also my Inmanus

I am a poor Cardinal,
One wants me to throw a ball,
Thus the pitiable dance
Will be held at the gallows,
Once more, once more
In saying my Inmanus

What makes me so hated?
It is that I am too treasonous,
Because I caused France
To be in great suffering,
I will need, I will need
To sing Salve Maria

I stole all the money,
Which made the people destitute,
I made too many Monopolies,
And snatched so many pistoles,
That I will need, that I will need
To sing Salve Regina

Was I not wrong
To restrain Monsieur de Beaufort
Inside the Bois de Vincennes?
But I will bear the punishment,
I will need, I will need
To sing Salve Regina

242
Ballard, vol. 1, 124. Another version in Capelle, 141.
106

Puis j’ay tint dans une tour,
Monsieur la Mothe Haudancourt,
Faisant mourir je le nomme,
Monsieur Barillon brave homme,
Trahysant, trahysant:
A Courtray semblablement.

J’ay trahy pareillement,
A Naples tres-meschamment,
Et suis cause de la prise
De ce grand Seigneur de Guyse,
Me faudra, me faudra
Chanter Salvé Regina

N’estois-je pas bien cruel,
Envers Monsieur de Broussel,
Voulant par ma tyrannie,
Qu’en prison finit sa vie,
Mais aussi, mais aussi,
Je n’ay pas bien reüssi.

Paris j’ay fait affamer,
Et contre la Ville armer,
Et ruyner bien des Villages,
Qui ont senty mes outrages
Mais faudra, mais faudra,
Chanter Salvé Regina

Mais aussi la nuict de Roys,
Inpertinant que j’estois,
J’ay en heure inopinée
Sa Majasté enlevée,
Tellement, tellement
Qui m’en cuira rudement.

Aprés tous ces maux commis,
Il faudra que je sois mis,
Sus un eschaffaut infame
Et là y rendre mon ame:
Chantant, chantant
Un Salvé bien hautement.

Then I held in a tower
Monsieur la Mothe Haudancourt,
Making him die, I name him
Monsieur Barillon, brave man,
Betraying, betraying
At Courtray in the same manner.

Similarly, I betrayed
At Naples, very nastily,
And I was the cause of the taking
Of the great Seigneur de Guise,
I will need, I will need
To sing Salve Regina

Was I not quite cruel
To Monsieur de Broussel,
Wanting, tyrannically,
That he finish his life in prison?
But also, but also
I was not very successful.

I made Paris starve,
And against the armed city,
And ruined the Villages,
Which felt my outrages,
But I will need, but I will need
To sing Salve Regina

But also the night of Kings,
Impertinent as I was,
At an unexpected hour,
I kidnapped His Majesty,
So much, so much
That I will roughly burn.

After all of these committed evils,
It will be necessary that I am put
Under an infamous beating,
And there, give back my soul:
Singing, singing
A Salve very loudly.

107

21. Le Grand Courrier General, rapportant toute les Nouvelles qui ce passe dans la
France:

Sur le chant, Dites-moy Roy d’Espagne, &c.

Le Gentil-homme

Je te supplie arreste,
Messager de Paris,
Fais un peu de retraite
Viens-t’on en mon Logis,
D’entendre les affaires,
Seroit tout mon vouloir,
Et te prie ne point taire
Ce que je veux sçavoir.

Le Courrier

Je veux de bonne grace,
Dire la verité,
Faut que je satisfasse
Vostre curiosité,
Il faut que je commence
Parler du Cardinal,
Qui veut ruyner la France,
Par conseil infernal.

Le Gentil-homme

Quoy il nous veux donc faire
Cruellement pastir,
Aussi ce temeraire,
S’en pourroit repentir
Ne donne point de tresve
Encore à tes discours,
Je te supplie acheve
Que j’entende le cours.

Le Courrier

Il nous vouloit reduire
A telle extremité,
Et aussi nous destruire
Par la necessité,
Faisant lever du monde,
De folle intention,
Mais tout cela redonde
A sa confusion.

Le Gentil-homme

C’estoit donc son-envie,
De nous ruyner en tout,
Mais de sa tyrannie,
The Gentleman

I beg you to stop,
Messenger from Paris,
Have a little break
Come into my dwelling,
To hear the news
Would be my only wish,
And I ask you to not keep quiet about
That which I want to know.

The Courrier

I want, by good grace,
To speak the truth,
To satisfy
Your curiosity,
I must start
By speaking about the Cardinal
Who wants to ruin France
With his infernal counsel.

The Gentleman

What does he, thus, want to do to us
Cruelly suffering
Also this audacious one
Himself would be able to repent
Do not pause
Again in your discourse,
I beg you to finish
So that I hear the lesson.

The Courrier

He wanted to reduce us
To such an extreme,
And also destroy us
By our needs,
Making to raise the earth,
By crazy intention,
But all this rebounds
To his confusion

The Gentleman

It was, thus, his desire
To completely ruin us.
But by his tyranny
108

En viendra-il à bout,
Avez-vous un grand nombre
De braves Generaux:
Qui pourront aller fondre
Dessus tous ces Marauts.

Le Courrier

Pour Generalissime,
C’est Monsieur de Conty,
Qui au Combat s’anime,
Prenant nostre party,
Puis de Beaufort ensuite,
Et la Mothe Haudancour,
Qui vont à leur poursuite
Et la nuict & le jour.

Le Gentil-homme

Manquez-vous point de vivres,
Tout n’est-il pas bien chair,
Que peut valoir la livre
De pain aussi de chair,
Avez-vous pas disette,
A Paris mesmement,
Je croy que l’on achepte
Le tout bien chairement.

Le Courrier

Ne faut point que je mente,
Tout est en grand cherté
Le people se l’amente,
De telle pauvreté,
Mais on a esperence
Qu’aprés tout ce tourment
On aura abondence,
Des bien suffisemment.

Le Gentil-homme

Avez-vous d’avantage,
De Genereux François,
Qui montre leur courage
Pour vous à cette fois,
L’Armée est-telle grande
Estes-vous bien puissant,
Affin qu’on se deffende
Contre ces insolens.

Le Courrier

Nous avons grosse Armée,
Contre nos ennemis,
Belle & bien ordonnée
Et gens tous bien conduits,
He will be finished,
Do you have a large number
Of brave Generals
Who will be able to go swoop down
On all the rascals?

The Courrier

For the Generalissimo,
It is Monsieur de Conti
Who in combat comes alive,
Joining our party,
Then Beaufort follows,
And the Mothe Haudancour,
Who went after them
Night and Day.

The Gentleman

Are you lacking supplies?
Is it not clear
What the value of a pound
Of bread as well as of meat are?
Do you not have a scarcity
In Paris even?
I believe that one buys it
All of it well of meat.

The Courrier

I must not lie,
There is a great scarcity,
The people lie to themselves about it
Of such poverty.
But one has hope
That after all this torment
One will have an abundance,
Of sufficient goods.

The Gentleman

Do you have the advantage
Of French Generals,
Who show their courage
For you at each time?
The army is so big,
Are you quite powerful enough
So that you can defend yourself
Against these insolent ones?

The Courrier

We have a huge army,
Against our enemies,
Beautiful and well-ordered
And men all well-behaved,
109

Le Marqui la Boulaye,
D’Elboef & de Boüillon,
Et Noirmoutier s’employe
Pour cette occasion.

Le Gentil-homme

Les Parlements de France
Se sont joint & unis,
Faisant correspondence
A celuy de Paris,
Les armes ont voulu prendre
Et se bien soustenir,
Afin de ce deffendre
De ce qui peut venir.

Le Courrier

Ce vaillant de la Mothe,
Ce hardy de Beaufort,
Ils font si bien en sorte
Par un puissant effort,
Par une force agille,
Et genereux exploits,
Tous les jours dans la ville,
Font entrer des Convoys.

Le Gentil-homme

Euste-vous bien du pire
En perdant Charanton,
Pour moy j’ay oüy dire
Qu’on tua Chastillon,
Clanleu dans la chamaille
Comme un brave Guerrier,
Mourut à la Bataille
Et reffusa quartier.

Le Courrier

Par un bien vaillance
L’Archiduc Léopold,
A envoyé en France,
Pour y faire un accord
Ces Courriers de vitesse
Sont venus au Palais:
Au nom de son Altesse
Pour demander la Paix.

Le Gentil-homme

Il a mandé par Lettre
A Nostre Parlement,
Qu’avec eux se veut mettre
En accommodement,
Que s’estoit son envie
The Marquis la Boulaye,
D’Elboef and de Bouillon,
And Noirmouiter are employed
For this occasion.

The Gentleman

The Parlements of France
Are joined and united,
Corresponding
With the one in Paris,
They wanted to take up arms
And sustain themselves well,
So as to defend them
From that which can come.

The Courrier

The valiant de la Mothe,
The brave de Beaufort,
They do good to ensure that,
By a strong effort,
By an agile force,
And general exploits
Everyday in the city
Convoys can enter.

The Gentleman

Are you worse off
In losing Charanton?
For me, I heard say
That one killed Chastillon;
Clanleu, in the squabble,
Like a brave warrior,
Died in the battle
And refused quarter.

The Courrier

With great valor,
The Archduke Leopold
Sent to France,
In order to make an accord,
These fast Courriers
Came to the Palace:
In the name of His Highness
To ask for peace.

The Gentleman

He summoned by letter
To our Parlement,
That with them, he wanted to put himself
In accommodation,
The it was his desire
110

De les vouloit server,
Qu’au peril de sa vie,
Nous viendroit secourir.

To serve them,
That, at the risk of his own life,
He would come to aid us.

111

22. Le Courrier de la Cour, rapportant toute les Nouvelles qui ce passe à present
dans Paris, & dans la Campagne:

Sur le chant, De Praslin à pris Rose, &c.

Je vous prie de m’entendre,
Vous Messieurs de Paris,
Ce que je viens d’aprendre
Dans un fameux Logis,
Que ce grand Longueville,
Se montre fort habille
Et se bat tous les jours,
Contre Monsieur d’Harcour.

J’ay encore oüy dire,
Qu’il en avoit deffait,
Qui venoient pour reduire
A mort des Villageois:
Et ruyner leur Villages,
D’un coeur plein de carnage,
Mais Dieu n’a-pas permy,
Ce grand masacre icy.

C’a parlons je vous prie,
De ce grand Léopold,
Qu’est dans la Picardie,
Qui viens d’un bon accord
Pour le Roy & nos Princes,
Et pour nostre Province,
Et pour faire la Paix
Avec les bons François.

Il a pour compagnie
Monieur de Noirmoutier,
Qui jure & certifie
Ne point donné quartier,
A ces traistes rebelles
Qui font chose cruelle,
Aux pauvres Paysans,
Et aussi aux Marchans.

Il faut parlé ensuite
Du Prince de Conty,
Qui va à la poursuite,
De nos fiers ennemis,
Et Monsieur de la Mothe,
Y va de mesme sorte,
Et le Duc de Beaufort,
Qu’on estime si fort.

Ne faut pas qu’on oublie
D’Elbeuf & de Boüillon,
Car ils ont bien envie
De batter ces poltrons,
I beg you to listen to me,
You Lords of Paris,
To that which I come to learn
In a famous dwelling,
That the great Longueville
Shows himself to be strongly attaired
And fights everyday
Against Monsieur d’Harcour.

I have already heard
That he had defeated him
Who came to reduce
The villagers to death:
And ruin their Villages,
With a heart full of carnage,
But God did not permit
That huge massacre here.

We speak, I beg you,
Of the great Léopold,
Who is in Picardy,
Who comes with friendship
For the King and our Princes,
And for our province,
And to make peace
With all the good Frenchmen.

For company, he has
Monsieur de Noirmoutier,
Who vows and certifies
Not to give any quarter
To these traitorous rebels
Who do cruel things
To poor peasants
And also to merchants.

One must next speak
About the Prince de Conti,
Who pursues
Our proud enemies,
And Monsieur de la Mothe,
Who follows the same plan,
And the Duc de Beaufort,
Who we hold in such high esteem.

One must not forget
D’Elbeuf and de Boüillon,
Because they have such desire
To fight these cowards,
112

Et le sieur la Boulaye,
Qui tous les jour s’employe
Faire comme à Grancé,
Qu’il a si mal traitté.

Parlons de la Trimoüille,
Et de ces Poictevins,
Qui feront la dépoüille
Du corps à Mazarin,
Et dedans la Tourenne,
La chose est tres-certaine
Que si on le tenoit
Mourir on le feroit.

A Bordeaux & Toulouse,
Ont pris nostre party,
Voyant la juste cause
Qu’on avoit dans Paris,
Et mesmement dans Guyenne
Et aussi dedans Vienne,
Ont bien fait reculé
Schombert sans plus tardé.

Il vint beaucoup de vivres,
Tant par terre que par eau,
Et les Chemins sont livre,
A present de nouveau,
Et mesme le Commerce,
Est restably sans cesse,
Comme à l’accoustumé
Le Roy l’a ordonné.

Nostre Evesque merite
Que l’on parle du luy,
Car il à sa suitte,
Des Soldats tres-hardy:
Et Monsieur de Vandosme,
A bien défait des hommes
Qui venoient secondé
Le Prince de Condé.

De Conty tres-civille,
Et nos bons Generaux,
Avecque Longueville,
Veulent que ce Maraut,
Pour punir ces offences
Sois mis à la potence
Pour y ester pendu
Ayant trop mal vescu.

Voilà ce que rapporte,
Le Courrier de la Cour,
Qui est venue en poste,
Tant la nuict que le jour,
Pour dire les Nouvelles
Du Peuple tres-fidelle,
And the sieur la Boulaye,
Who everday works to do
Like at Grancé
That he treated so poorly.

We speak of Trimoüille,
And of these Poitevins
Who will skin
The troops of Mazarin,
And inside Tourenne,
It is very certain that
If one held it,
To die one would do it.

Bordeaux and Toulouse
Have joined our side,
Seeing the just cause
That we have in Paris,
And similarly in Guyenne
And also Vienna
Has withdrawn
Schombert without any more delay.

He comes with many supplies,
As many by land as by water,
And the paths are opened up
Again,
And even commerce
Is ceaselessly reestablished
As is customary,
The King ordered it done.

Our Bishop merits
That we talk about him,
Because he has in his entourage
Very hardy soldiers:
And Monsieur de Vandosme
Soundly defeated the men
Who came to reinforce
The Prince de Condé

The very-civil Conti
And our good Generals,
With Longueville,
Want this Rascal,
To bring him to the gallows
In order to punish his offences,
To be hung up there
Having lived so badly.

So that’s what the Courrier of the Court
Reports
Who makes the postal round
Night and day
To speak the news
Of the very loyal people
113

Qui se sont joints tretous
Voulant mourir pour nous.
Who are all together
Willing to die for us.

114

23. Chanson nouvelle, Sur la Declaration de nos Princes & Generaux, & de tout le
people de Paris, sur le refus de Mazarin, & ne veulent point qu’il revienne jamais:

Sur le chant, J’entend la trompette, &c.

Nos Princes deposes,
Contre Mazarin,
Et tous se propose,
Punir ce Cocquin,
Car ils ne veulent plus
Qu’à Paris il revienne,
Ils y sont resolus,
Parce qu’il nous maintienne.

Tous chacun fulmine,
Vers luy cette-fois,
Car il est la ruyne,
De tous les François
Ha! Traistre Mazarin,
Au Diable on te donne,
Fuissent-tu dans le Rhin,
Ou au fond de la Saune.

Ne faut pas qu’il oze,
Venir à Paris,
Car tous se dispose,
Et grands & petits,
De le bien chastier,
Si jamais il y rentre,
De grace ny quartier,
Il ne doit pas pretendre.

Il pille la France,
Prenant son butin,
Faut avoir vangeance,
Contre ce mastin,
Ha! Traistre Mazarin, &c.

Faut que l’on assomme,
Ce faux Cardinal,
Et que l’on le nomme,
Démon infernal,
Ha! Traistre Mazarin, &c.

Toutes nos furies,
Il pourra sentir,
De ses volleries,
Aussi repentir,
Ha! Traistre Mazarin, &c.

Par ses Monopolles,
Il nous avoit pris
Toutes nos pistolles,
Et nos beaux Louys,
Our Princes testify
Against Mazarin,
And all propose
To Punish this scoundrel,
Because they no longer want
Him to return to Paris,
They are resolute about it
Because they defend us.

Each of them rails
Against him each time,
Because he is the ruin
Of all Frenchmen.
Ha! Traitorous Mazarin,
To the Devil with you,
Flee into the Rhine
Or to the bottom of the Saune.

He must not dare
Come to Paris,
Because all prepare,
The great and the small,
To strongly chastise him;
If ever he comes back here,
He will have the right to claim
Neither grace nor quarter.

He pillages France,
Taking his loot;
Vengeance must be had
Against this cur,
Ha! Traitorous Mazarin…

One must knock him unconscious,
This false Cardinal,
And one names him
‘Infernal Demon.’
Ha! Traitorous Mazarin…

He will be able to feel
All of our furies,
And also repent
All of his robberies.
Ha! Traitorous Mazarin…

With his monopolies
He had taken
All of our pistolets
And our handsome Louis
115

Ha! Traistre Mazarin, &c.

Monsieur la Trimoüille
A des Poictevins,
Qui feront dépoüille
De ce Mazarin,
Aussi pareillement,
Le Duc de Longueville,
A beaucoup de Normands,
Qui sont Guerriers habille.

Tout chacun conspire,
Sa perdition,
Et le people aspire,
Sa destruction,
Ha! Traistre Mazarin, &c.

Ha! Traitorous Mazarin…

Monsieur la Trimoüille
Has some Poitevins
Who will skin
This Mazarin,
And similarly,
The Duc de Longueville
Has many Normans
Who are dressed for war.

Each and every one plans
His downfall,
And the people yearn for
His destruction.
Ha! Traitorous Mazarin…

116

24. Chanson nouvelle, Sur la delivrance de Monsieur de Brousel, Conseiller du Roy
en sa Cour de Parlement:

Sur le chant, Thoinon la belle jardinière, &c.
243

Ne faut point passer sous silence,
Les faits de Monsieur de Brousel,
Car par sa grande vigilence
Et par son soing continuel,
Rendra la France Florissante
Qui ne sera plus languissante.

François il nous faut crier vive,
Louys nostre Roy Tres-Chrestien,
Aussi que tout bon-heur arrive
A de Brousel homme de bien,
La France luy est redevable
Par son conseil tres-admirable.

Heureux le jour de la Naissance
A de Broussel homme estimé
Dans Paris & par tout la France,
Il est de tout chacun aymé,
A ce vertueux personage,
Tout Paris à rendu hommage.

Cette belle langue faconde
Et son parler tout divin,
N’avoit-il pas ravy le monde?
Comme fit autre-fois Servin,
De Broussel en a fait de mesme
Ce qui fait que tout chacun l’ayme.

Faut avoir dans nostre memoire
Desormais Monsieur de Brousel,
Car il nous ayme il le faut croire
D’un amour qui est paternel,
Qui fait que par tout on l’admire,
We must not pass in silence
The deeds of M. De Brousel,
Because by his great vigilance
And by his continual care,
He will make France thrive
So that it will never again languish.

Frenchmen, we must cry long live
Louis our very-Christian King,
Also all good fortune for
Broussel, a good man,
France is indebted to him
For his very admirable council.

Happy was the day of his Birth,
To Broussel, respected man,
In Paris and in all of France,
He is loved by everyone,
To this virtuous personage,
All Paris renders homage.

His beautiful, eloquent language
And his divine speech,
Had he not delighted the world?
As did Servin before,
Broussel did the same
Which made it so that everyone loves him.

We must remember
Monsieur de Broussel from now on,
Because he loves us, it is necessary to believe
In that paternal love,
Which makes it so that all over one admires him,

243
Maurepas, vol. 1, 129.
117

Et que tout bien on luy desire.

Prions Dieu benir ses années,
Et qui les vueilles prolonger,
Et que la paix nous soit donnée
Affin de nos maux soulager,
Et nous oster de l’indigence
Et nous renvoyer l’abondance.

La France sera réjoüye,
Aussi ses pauvre Habitans,
Qui pourront mieux gagner leur vie,
Et desormais vivre contans,
Nous faut donc reprendre esperance
De bien-tost sorti de souffrance.

Mais quel bon-heur pour sa lignée
Que ses parents furent joyeux,
Quand liberté luy fut donnée
Et qui le revirent auprés d’eux,
Grand joye en eut la populace,
Qui à Dieu en a rendu grace.
And that one desires all the best for him.

We pray that God bless his years,
And that he prolongs them,
And that peace be given to us,
So that our pains be eased,
And deliver us from poverty
And return us to abundance.

France will be overjoyed
Also, its poor inhabitants,
Who will be able to better earn their livings,
And henceforth live happily,
We must thus take back the hope
That we will soon leave suffering behind.

But what fortune for his line
That his kinsmen were happy
When he was given his freedom
And they saw him again,
The populace was joyous
That to God they gave grace.

118

25. La harangue du Peuple aux Generaux, pour reduire au Tombeau Mazarin, & la
menace de tous les Bourgeois de la France pour le mal traité:

Sur le chant, Helas Prince débonnaire, &c.

Le Cardinal Mazarin,
Est un faquin, est un faquin
Et un traistre sanguinaire,
Helas! Generaux de Guerre,
Mettez l’ay à bas.

Il a fait beaucoup de mal,
Ce deloyal, ce deloyal,
Et tant causé de miseres
Helas! Generaux de Guerre
Mettez l’ay à bas.

C’est un grand Monoplleur,
Et grand Volleur, Et grand Volleur
Qui ayt eu jamais sur terre,
Helas! Genereux de Guerre…

Et vous Monsieur de Conty,
Et de Vitry, & de Vitry,
Tous deux jetté l’ay par terre,
Helas! Princes débonnaire,
Ne le manquez-pas

Longueville pour certain,
Veut Mazarin, veut Mazarin,
Pour le faire estre Forçaire,
Helas! Generaux de Guerre…

D’Elboeuf avec de Boüillon,
Bons Champions, bons Champions,
Luy payeront ces salaires
Helas! Ces Foudres de Guerre,
Le mettront à bas.

Et vous Monsieur de Beaufort,
Nostre support, nostre support,
Tüé-donc ce temeraire,
Helas! Prince débonnaire,
Ne le manquez-pas.

Et vous ce grand Haudancour:
Dans une Tour, dans une Tour
Vous teint quatre années entiere
Helas! Seigneur débonnaire,
Mettrez l’ay à bas.

La Boulaye pareillement
Homme vaillant, homme vaillant
Le metre dedans la biere,
The Cardinal Mazarin
Is a porter, is a porter
And a bloodthirsty traitor,
Alas! Generals of the war,
Put him down on the ground!

He has done a lot of harm,
This disloyal one, this disloyal one
And so much a cause of misery.
Alas, Generals of the war
Put him down on the ground!

He is a huge monopolizer,
And the biggest thief, and the biggest thief
That there ever was on Earth,
Alas, Generals…

And you, Monsieur de Conti,
And de Vitry, and de Vitry,
You both throw him to the ground,
Alas! Good-natured Princes,
Do not miss him.

Longueville for certain
Wants Mazarin, wants Mazarin,
To make him be Forcaire
Alas! Generals of the war…

D’Elboef with de Bouillon,
Good champions, good champions,
Will pay him this reward
Alas! These thunderbolts of War,
Will put him down on the ground.

And you, Monsieur de Beaufort,
Our support, our support,
Kill-thus this impudent one
Alas! Good-natured Prince,
Do not miss him.

And you, the great Haudancour
In a tower, in a tower
were held for four whole years
Alas! Good-natured Seigneur
Put him to the ground.

La Boulaye similarly
Valiant man, valiant man
Put him inside the coffin
119

Helas, &c.

Et le sieur de Noirmontier,
Vaillant Guerrier, vaillant Guerrier,
Luy taillera des croupieres,
Helas! Grand Foudre de Guerre,
Ne le manquez-pas.

Pour Léopold & ses gens,
Sont maintenant, sont maintenant,
Qui l’atende en grand colere,
Helas! Generaux de Guerre;
Ne la manquez-pas.

Il a fait empoisonné
Cét enragé, cét enragé,
Monseigneur de Bassompierre,
Helas! Generaux de Guerre, &c.

Et pour Monsieur de Gassion,
Par trahyson, par trahyson,
Le fit tüé par derriere,
Helas! Generaux de Guerre, &c.

Si il revient dans Paris,
Comme l’on dit, comme l’on dit
On luy fera bonne chere,
Helas! Generaux de Guerre…

Et les Bourgeois de Roüen,
Sont tres-contants, sont tres-contants,
Qu’on le jette à riviere:
Helas! Generaux de Guerre, &c.

Dans Marseilles, & dans Bordeaux,
Ont des Vaisseaux, ont des Vaisseaux,
Pour l’envoyer au Gallere,
Helas! Generaux de Guerre,
Ne le manquez-pas.

Dedans Rheims, & dans Chalon,
C’est tout de bon, c’est tou de bon,
Qui coupprons ses genitoires
Helas! Ces Faudres de Guerre,
Ne le manquez pas.

Dans Renne tous les Bretons,
Bons Compagnons, bons Compagnons
Le tuëront à coups de pierres
Helas! Generaux de Guerre,
Tué-donc ce Judas.

Et pour ceux-là de Lyon,
Et de Dijon, & de Dijon,
Le reduiront en poussiere,
Helas!, &c.
Alas…

And the sieur de Noirmontier,
Valiant warrior, valiant warrior,
Will hamstring him,
Alas! Great thunderbolt of war,
Do not miss him.

For Leopold and his men,
Are now, are now,
Wait for him in great anger
Alas! Generals of the War,
Do not miss him.

He poisoned,
It is enraging, it is enraging,
Monseigneur de Bassompierre,
Alas! Generals of War…

And for Monsieur de Gassion,
By treachery, by treachery,
He had him killed from behind,
Alas! Generals of War…

If he comes back to Paris,
Like one says, like one says
One will make him good cheer
Alas! Generals of War…

And the Bourgeoisie of Rouen,
Are very happy, are very happy
That one throws him in the river,
Alas! Generals of War…

In Marseilles and in Bordeaux,
They have vessels, they have vessels
In order to send him to hell
Alas! Generals of War,
Do not miss him.

In Rheims and in Chalon
It is all good, it is all good
They will cut his genitals
Alas! These thunderbolts of war,
Do not miss him.

In Rennes, all the Bretons,
Good companions, good companions,
Will stone him
Alas! Generals of War
Thus kill this Judas.

And those there from Lyon,
And from Dijon, and from Dijon,
Will reduce him to dust,
Alas…
120

Messieurs vous avez grand coeur
Et grand honneur, & grand honneur
Pour le mettre dans la biere,
Helas! Generaux de Guerre,
Mettez l’ay à bas.

Sirs, you have a big heart
And great honor, and great honor
To put him in the coffin
Alas! Generals of War,
Put him to the ground.

121

26. Le preparatif de Lucifer, de Pluton, & de Caron, pour recevoir Mazarin,
dans ses Enfers:
Sur le chant, Des Qu’en-dira-t’on? &c.
244

244
Ballard, vol. 1, 20.
Toy Mazarin qui veut troubler la France,
Par ton esprit diabolique & meschant,
Pour ton offence
Le Parlement,
On a predit de te faire mourir,
Pour te punir.

Lucifer en attendant ta venuë
A fait ballier pour te recevoir
Toutes le ruës,
Car ton sçavoir,
Sera du bien estant son favory,
Tu és tout en luy.

Afin de recevoir ton Eminence,
Les Diables se sont armez jusqu’aux dents,
Car ta presence,
Les rend contants
En te voyant seront tous resjoüis
Tes grands amis.

Les Diablotins t’attendent à la pipée
Portant picques, corcelets, & mousquets,
Avec espée,
Et pistolets,
Tambour battant veulent pour ton sçavoir,
Te recevoir.

Tu as autre-fois esté Courrier de Rome,
Tu seras postillon de Lucifer,
You Mazarin, who wants to trouble France,
By your diabolical and nasty spirit,
For your offense,
Parlement
Decided to have you killed,
To punish you.

Lucifer, in awaiting your arrival,
Had all of the streets swept
To receive you,
Because your cunning
Will be good in being his favorite
You are all in him.

In order to receive your Eminence,
The Devils armed themselves to the teeth,
Because your presence
Makes them happy
In seeing you they will all be delighted,
Your great friends.

The imps eagerly await you
Carrying spades, corselets, and muskets,
With swords,
And pistols,
Drum thumping for you knowledge,
To receive you.

You were at another time a Roman courrier,
You will be Lucifer’s post boy,
122

Comme un brave homme
Dans les Enfers,
Peu à peu tu mettra tes Compagnons
Prés de Büillon.

Caron te viens donner pour recompence,
Proserpine pour ta chere moitié
Ton Eminence,
Sans en ralier,
Merite bien de posseder son Coeur,
Et sa grandeur.

Caron t’attend avec impatience,
Pour te traitter selon ta qualité,
Pour asseurance,
Tu és asseuré,
Que tu entreras dans ce lieu tenebreux
Trop mal-heureux.

Pernicieux vipere abominable,
Qui nous cause en France tant de mal-heur,
Trop miserable,
Le Createur,
Te fera tresbucher avec Lucifer,
Dans les Enfers.
Like a brave man
In Hell,
Little by little, you will put your companions
Near to Buillon.

Charon will come to give you, as a reward,
Proserpine for you dear other half,
You Eminence,
Without rallying,
You are worthy of possessing her heart
And he grandeur.

Charon awaits you with impatience,
To treat you according to your quality,
For assurance,
You are assured
That you will enter into this gloomy
And too unfortunate place.

Pernicious, abominable viper,
Who causes us so much misfortune in France,
Too miserable,
The Creator
Will make you stumble with Lucifer
In Hell.

123

27. Histoire veritable d’un malheureux Monopoleur, lequel a esté emporté par
les Diables, prés la ville de Lyon:

Sur le chant, De Bois-Vignon, &c.

Mon Dieu permetté par vostre Clemence,
Que je recite à l’honneste assistance,
La punition aussi le grand mal-heur,
Arrivé à un grand Monopoleur.

Ce malheureux par trop remply de rage,
Ruynoit tous les pauvres gens de Villages,
Par son esprit diabolique & meschant,
A luy a tiré tout l’or & l’argent.

Pour attirer à luy tous nos pistoles
Il inventoit cent mile Monopoles,
Faisoit souffrir les pauvres Laboureurs,
Pour faire venir ses parens grands Seigneurs.

Il commettoit encore bien d’autre offence,
Il ne servoit pas la Toute puissance
Jamais il ne vouloit dedans l’Eglise entrer,
Encore moins les Confesseurs aborder.

Voulant faire payer quelque subsiste
Au Paysant qui n’estoit pas licite,
A mesme instant mirent les armes en main,
Furent trouver ce perfide inhumain.

Ce meschant Monopoleur prit la fuitte,
Tous les Paysans furent à la poursuitte
Il receut plusieurs coups sur son corps
Si bien qu’il fut blessé jusques à la mort.

Prest à mourir ce traistre abominable,
A tous momens il se donnoit au Diable
Ne voulant point recevoir confession
Qui est la cause de sa damnation.

Estant au dernier souspir de sa vie,
Sans regretter sa miserable vie,
Il blasphemoit le nom du Createur,
Comme un meschant traistre persecuteur.

Tous ses parens pour couvrir sa malice,
Luy firent faire un assez beau Service,
Mais il avoit à l’article de la mort,
Au Diable donné son ame & son corps.

Ayant mis en terre ce miserable,
Diverse fois une voix effroyable,
S’escriant pour moy ne faut pas prié
Je suis damné pour une eternité.
My God, permit me, with your clemency,
To recite with honest assistance
The punishment and grave misfortune
That was handed down to a grand Monopolizer.

This unhappy wretch, full of rage,
Ruined all the poor men of the Villages
By his diabolical and nasty spirit
He stole all of the gold and silver.

To attract all of the pistoles
He invented a hundred-thousand monopolies,
Causing the poor laborers to suffer
To make his allies great Lords.

He committed yet another great offence.
He did not serve the All Powerful,
He never wanted to enter the Church,
Much less approach the Confessors.

Wanting to make the Peasants
Pay illicit taxes,
At the same time taking up arms in their hands,
They went to find this traitorous barbarian.

This nasty monopolizer took flight,
All the peasants went in pursuit.
His body was shot numerous times
So many times that he was fatally injured.

Close to death, this abominable traitor
At that moments gave himself to the Devil
Not wanting to receive confession,
Which is the cause of his damnation

With his last breath of life,
Without regretting his miserable life,
He blasphemed the name of the Creator,
Like a nasty, traitorous persecutor.

All his allies, to hide his malice,
Prepared for him a beautiful Service,
But he had, in a clause of death,
Given his soul and body to the Devil.

Having put this miserable one in earth,
Numerous times, a frightening voice
Cried, ‘you do not need to pray for me,
I am damned for eternity.
124

Dans les Enfers au rang des infidelles:
Me faut brusler dans les flammes eternelle,
Pour avoir fait languir les innocens,
Je suis privé du Sauveur tout-puissant.

Aussi-tost fut deterré par les Diables,
Ayant pouvoir sur cét abominable,
Ils dechirerent son corps par morceaux,
Ne laissant point de chair dessus les os.

A ses parents subjet bien memorable,
L’ombre s’aparut chose veritable,
Et leur dit servé bien le Souverain;
Ne vous damné pour l’argent qui n’est rien.

Voylà la vie & la fin miserable,
De ce meschant vipere trop miserable,
Serviteur Domestique à Lucifer,
Pour sa recompence il est aux Enfers.

Dans nos corps ne seront point l’avarice,
Au doux Jesus rendons humble service:
On n’entre point au Ciel par les grandeurs,
Mais bien par las bassesse & la douceur.

Prions Jesus & la Vierge sa Mere,
Qu’il leur plaise estre à nos heure derniere,
Afin qu’un jour dedant le Firmament
Nous nous puissons voir tous ensemblement.

In hell, along with the infidels,
I must burn in the eternal flames
For having made the innocents languish,
I am deprived of the all-powerful Savior.

Immediately after, he was exhumed by Devils,
Having power over this abominable one,
They ripped his body into pieces,
Not leaving any flesh on the bones.

To his allies, a very memorable subject,
The shadow revealed a true thing,
And told them to serve well the sovereign;
Do not damn yourselves for money, which is nothing.

There you have it, the life and miserable end
Of this nasty, too-miserable viper,
Domestic servant of Lucifer,
For his reward, he is in Hell.

In our bodies, we will not have avarice
To gentle Jesus we give humble service:
One does not enter Heaven through grandeur,
But through baseness and kindness.

We pray to Jesus and the Virgin his Mother
That it pleases them to be at our final hour,
So that one day in the Firmament
We can see each other all together.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This thesis examines the political chansons contained in the "Recueil général de toutes les chansons mazarinistes. Et avec plusieurs qui n’ont point estées chantées," a 1649 mazarinade. Published in Paris during the parlementary Fronde, the pamphlet contains 27 songs, making it a particularly rich musical source. I argue that the lyrics—which cover a range of controversial and seditious topics from Mazarin’s villainy to the military conflict at Charanton—create a compelling narrative of the parlementary Fronde from the perspective of a frondeur rebel. Indeed, by treating the pamphlet as a cohesive and deliberate collection, this thesis draws out the most important people and events of the uprising as seen throughout the mazarinade

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Dougherty, Nathan (author)

Core Title Mazarin, author of woe: the lyrics and melodies of the Recueil général de toutes les chansons mazarinistes

School Thornton School of Music

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Early Music Performance

Publication Date 07/26/2016

Defense Date 06/22/2016

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag France,Fronde,Louis XIV,lyrics,Mazarin,mazarinades,melodies,OAI-PMH Harvest,Paris,political song,timbre,Vaudeville

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Gilbert, Adam (committee chair), Fox, Rachelle (committee member), Gilbert, Rotem (committee member)

Creator Email nathankdougherty@gmail.com,ndougher@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-278965

Unique identifier UC11279510

Identifier etd-DoughertyN-4624.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-278965 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-DoughertyN-4624-1.pdf

Dmrecord 278965

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Dougherty, Nathan

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA