Jean tuned his fiddle afresh, and placing it with a knowing jerk
under his chin, and with an air of conceit worthy of Lulli, began to
sing and play the old ballad:
"'A St. Malo, beau port de mer,
Trois navires sont arrives,
Charges d'avoine, charges de bled;
Trois dames s'en vont les merchander!'"
"Tut!" exclaimed Varin, "who cares for things that have no more
point in them than a dumpling! give us a madrigal, or one of the
devil's ditties from the Quartier Latin!"
"I do not know a 'devil's ditty,' and would not sing one if I did,"
replied Jean La Marche, jealous of the ballads of his own New
France. "Indians cannot swear because they know no oaths, and
habitans cannot sing devil's ditties because they never learned
them; but 'St. Malo, beau port de mer,'--I will sing that with any
man in the Colony!"
The popular songs of the French Canadians are simple, almost
infantine, in their language, and as chaste in expression as the
hymns of other countries. Impure songs originate in classes who
know better, and revel from choice in musical slang and indecency.
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