While there is much that is common in the folk-songs of all the provinces of France, the same stories and the same turns of expression, showing, if not a common origin, a very wide and thorough intercommunication,—as, for instance, in the beautiful and pathetic ballad of Jean Renaud, which is found almost everywhere in slightly differing variants,—each section has its own local peculiarities illustrating the temperament and the origin of the people.

It is needless to say that there is a strongly marked note of difference between the melancholy and finely sensitive songs of the people of Brittany and the gay and joyous chants and ballads of those of Gascony and Provence. It would be inevitable from the widely different natures of the two people, and their origin from distinct and strongly divergent native stocks. But this distinction goes further, and marked shades of difference in feeling and sentiment may be found in the character and temperament of the folk-songs and music of the inhabitants of the same province, who are of common origin and consanguinity, with the same native language, and the same habits and customs. This is due in a great measure to a difference in their surroundings, and the influence of external nature, whether gay or morose, fertile or barren, upon the minds and characters of the people. Thus in his splendid collection of the Chants and Chansons Populaires des Provinces de l'Ouest, M. Jerome Burgeaud tells us that the plaintive and melancholy airs of the inhabitants of the deep woods and heavy marshes of La Vendee become gay and cheerful in Poitou, and sparkle with brilliant mirth in Saintonge and the Angumois, without changing their notes or form, simply from the difference in the scenery and its influence upon the spirits of the people. The ancient Poitou, comprising the upper portion of the region between the Loire and Garonne, is full of smiling and rich fields, where the grapes burgeon in deep black clusters, and the yellow wheat-ears hang heavy and full, and the warm sun and the savory air fill the blood of the people with lightness and gayety. They are not so ebullient and joyous, it may be, as the inhabitants of the still warmer and more smiling regions of Gascony and Languedoc, but the contrast is very marked between them and their northern neighbors, whose very mirth has a melancholy tinge, and in whom even drunkenness is a protest against sorrow rather than the natural extravagance of light-heartedness.

The Poitevin peasant is naturally gay, and his light-heartedness is manifested in the great number, as well as in the good humor and cheerfulness, of his folk-songs. Of course the common sorrows of mankind weigh upon him; he feels the stings of poverty and the pains and sordidness of labor; the conscription tears him from his home and his beloved; and he experiences the tragedies of love and death. These things stir his mind and find a place in his folk-songs, but the prevailing spirit which governs his expression in music and song is not of melancholy brooding and sorrow, like that of his Celtic neighbors, but gayety and joyousness. He finds the smiling world a pleasant place to live in; his love is the natural and happy ebullition of his warm temperament; and his experiences of life are cheerful.

The gayety of the Poitevin temperament finds its expression in the immense number of "rounds" as they are called in English, which give the vocal measure and accompaniment to the vigorous and joyous dances. The youths and the maidens, when they meet at the rustic gatherings, or even in the intervals of labor in the fields, join hands by a natural instinct, and improvise a dance to the rhythm of their own voices, and the "rounds" which they sing, although often mere nonsense, or at least without a consecutive meaning, have a note of gayety and an ebullition of joyousness, which is inimitable, as thus:—

Vous, qui menez la ronde,

Menez la rondement.

Son cotillon en branle, en branle,

Son cotillon en branle au vent.

Foule, foule, foulons l'herbe,

L'herbe foule reviendra.

Brnnette, allons, gai, gai, gai,

Brunette, allons, gai, gaiment.

—words which interpret the air and accent the steps with an absolute perfection, which a translation cannot render, although it may give an idea of the vivacity and entrain.

You, who lead the round,

Lead it roundily.

Her petticoat in motion, in motion,

Her petticoat in motion to the wind.

Tread, tread, come tread the grass,

The trodden grass will spring again

Brunette, come, gay, gay, gay,

Brunette, come, gay, gaily.

All these, like the ancient choruses with which the Greek maidens accompanied their dances of "woven paces and waving hands," with or without the note of a primitive reed to accent the melody, are reproduced in the grosser spirit of the laboring peasant, but equally instinctive with life and gayety, and the natural expression of youthful existence in the open air and under balmy skies.

One of the most characteristic features of the Poitevin peasant is his cunning, his fondness for rustic ruses, and the sharp repartee or trick, which puts to shame the person of a station above his own. The heroines of many of his favorite ballads and songs are endowed with this quality, and he chuckles with a hearty zest at the simple wit with which the shrewd shepherdess puts down the amorous gallant learned in the schools, or escapes the dangerous importunity of a gentleman on the highway or a seignorial hunter in the fields. The folksongs of Poitou are full of such examples, and M. Bugeaud, and M. Leon Pineau, who has followed him in gleaning in the same field (Le Folk-Lore du Poitou), have given a number of specimens. The following shows what simple repartee appeals to the rustic sense of humor:—