This song pays tribute to the generosity and boundless compassion of Mme. Jeanne Planche, who played a very major role in Brassens’ life.Although she was thirty years his senior and a married woman, they became lovers when Georges was about nineteen or twenty and their loving relationship continued until the end of her life.She gave him a refuge when he had to go in hiding during the war and also gave him the initial support that made his musical career possible.The biographical references in this song are discussed below in my translation notes.
Chez Jeanne, la Jeanne, At Jeanne’s house, our Jeanne Son auberge est ouverte aux gens sans feu ni lieu,(1) Her inn has room for folk in need of warmth and shelter On pourrait l'appeler l'auberge de Bon Dieu You might give it the name of the inn of the Lord S'il n'en existait déjà une, If there didn’t exist one already, La dernière où l'on peut entrer The last one left where you can enter Sans frapper, sans montrer patte blanche...(1) Without knocking, without showing white paws
Chez Jeanne, la Jeanne,
At Jeannes house, our Jeanne On est n'importe qui, on vient n'importe quand, No matter who you are, coming no matter when Et, comme par miracle, par enchantement, And as if by magic, quite miraculously, On fait partie de la famille,(3) You’re straightway one of the family Dans son cœur, en s'poussant un peu, In her heart, by squeezing up tight, Reste encore une petite place... There is still a little space left
La Jeanne, la Jeanne, Our Jeanne, our Jeanne, Elle est pauvre et sa table est souvent mal servie,(4) She is poor and her table is often quite sparse Mais le peu qu'on y trouve assouvit pour la vie, But the little you find fills your needs for all time Par la façon qu'elle le donne, By the way in which she gives it, Son pain ressemble à du gateau(5) Her bread tastes so much like cake Et son eau à du vin comm' deux gouttes d'eau... And her water’s so much like wine, no-one could tell.
La Jeanne, la Jeanne, Our Jeanne, our Jeanne, On la paie quand on peut des prix mirobolants (6) You pay her, when you can, quite astounding amounts: Un baiser sur son front ou sur ses cheveux blancs, A kiss on the forehead or placed on her grey hair Un semblant d'accord de guitare, A vague chord or two on guitar L'adresse d'un chat échaudé The address of some scalded cat Ou d'un chien tout crotté comm' pourboire...(7) Or of some scruffy dog just as a bonus.
La Jeanne, la Jeanne, Our Jeanne, our Jeanne, Dans ses ros's et ses choux(8) n'a pas trouvé d'enfant In her gooseberry bushes found no son or daughter Qu'on aime et qu'on défend contre les quatre vents, Whom one loves and defends whatever may befall Et qu'on accroche à son corsage, And whom you clasp to your bosom Et qu'on arrose avec son lait... And whom you feed with your own milk D'autres qu'elle en seraient tout's chagrines... Anyone else would be quite upset about it.
Mais Jeanne, la Jeanne, But Jeanne, our Jeanne, Ne s'en soucie pas plus que de colin-tampon Does not give it a thought for the briefest moment Être mère de trois poulpiquets,(9) à quoi bon ? Being mother of three little kids, what’s the point?? Quand elle est mère universelle, When she’s the universal mother Quand tous les enfants de la terre, When all the children of the earth De la mer et du ciel sont à elle... Of the sea and of the sky are hers.
Georges Brassens 1961 - Les trompettes de la renommée.
TRANSLATION NOTES
1)Son auberge est ouverte aux gens sans feu ni lieu - There is a play on words here with the expression "sans foi ni loi", which is an expression meaning “outside the law”. When Brassens went to live in Jeanne’s house, he was in hiding from the authorities.In March 1943, he had been requisitioned for the Service de Travail Obligatoire and was forced to go to a camp in Basdorf, Germanyto work for the German war effort.After a year, Brassens got a pass for ten days home leave.Once back in Paris, he did a runner to avoid returning to Germany. He was then in need of refuge, “Sans feu ni lieu” and It was Jeanne Planche and her husband, Marcel, who offered to hide him and look after him, as long as necessary, in their cramped little house in a narrow cul de sac - l'impasse Florimont in the 14th arrondissement..
2)Montrer patte blanche - This a reference to the French fairy tale, in which Mother Goat, on leaving for market, tells her children not to open the door, unless whoever calls is able to show a white paw under the door – for fear of the wolf.
3)On est n'importe qui, on vient n'importe quand,- Et, comme par miracle, par enchantement, - On fait partie de la famille (Lines 8-10).Section C of my biography of the relationship of Brassens and Jeanne (See below) tells how Brassens came to be so completely at home with her – for so long!
4)Elle est pauvre et sa table est souvent mal servie (Line 14) Section C of my biography of Brassens and Jeanne (See below) tells of the poverty that they lived in, in the Impasse Florimont and the privations of war.
5)Son pain - In fact the bread that Jeanne would have served in her home from 1940 to about 1947 was the grey or black French bread of the war years.
6)On la paie quand on peut des prix mirobolants : - Un baiser sur son front ou sur ses cheveux blancs, - Un semblant d'accord de guitar(lines 20- 22)- Section C of my biography of Brassens and Jeanne (See below)tells how little she expected and received in return for her hospitality.
7)Un chat échaudé - Un chien tout crotté.Jeanne had an immense love of animals and crowded their inadequate home with strays that she had taken pity on.In his song of seven years earlier,“La cane de Jeanne”, Brassens had teased her about her excessive emotion on the death of her pet duck.
8)In the days when parents were uneasy about giving their children lessons in human biology, British parents, when asked by their child how babies were made, replied that new babies were found under gooseberry bushes and French parents replied that new boy babies were found under cabbages and new girl babies under roses.
9)Poulpiquet – Larousse tells me that the strict meaning of this word is “an infant not yet weaned”, but adds that in common speech there is a pejorative sense of a child of unruly character.
Biographical links in the poem
When I started to write about the biographical links in this poem, I found that I was practically writing a full biography, but in a fragmentary and inconsequential form.I therefore decided to write a full story of Brassens and Jeanne’s relationship, to which I could refer some quotations in my translation notes above.
The songs in this collection that tell of his life with Jeanne
This song “Jeanne” is the fourth Brassens song in my collection that refers to his life at the house of his very great friend, Mme Jeanne Planche. The dates when the four songs appeared were:
1)1954 – “La cane de Jeanne”, in the album - Les amoureux des bancs publics.This song was written, therefore, just a couple of years after Brassens began to have success with his music and achieve some earnings.
2)1955 – “Chanson pour l'auvergnat”, in the album of the same name. The man from the Auvergne, to whom the song was dedicated, was her husband, Marcel, but she has her own verse in it.
3)1955 – “Auprès de mon arbre”. This song was also in the album - Chanson pour l'auvergnat, and includes a description of his life of total bliss in his slum accommodation.
4)1961 – “Jeanne”, in the album- Les trompettes de la renommée. After the publication of this song, Brassens was to live on another five years in Jeanne’s house until the death of Marcel Planche, in 1966, when Jeanne decided to remarry.
A French television programme: “Regard de Brassens” was screened in 2011.It was based upon his family videos and these were interspersed with comments from Brassens’ friends and from his biographers, some of which have made me revise some of my previous understanding of the relationship of Georges Brassens and Jeanne Planche.I can no longer find this video on Daily Motion but the following video covers much the same ground:
Shortly before he turned eighteen, Georges Brassens found himself on the wrong side of the law. He had started going around with a gang of boys who had not too much respect for authority. They neglected their studies and skipped school. Two songs which Brassens wrote, set in his teenage years - "Il suffit de passer le pont" and "La Premiere Fille" - are to most of us, just charming poems about the first experience of love in the Springtime of life. However, in the repressive mores of the 1930s, they give evidence of a boy, who was ready to break this rigid social and religious code in the very sensitive and explosive matter of sexuality.
Some of the activities of Georges and his undesirable friends began to give grounds for really serious concern. The youths became secretly involved in petty crime and pilfered small items that they could sell, raising enough money to buy records, among other things.. Their victims were mainly members of their own families. Georges helped himself to a ring and bracelet, belonging to his half-sister. When some of the stolen property was recognised in a local shop window, the police tracked down the culprits. They were taken to court and a number of boys were sent to prison. With the support of his father, Georges got away with a one year sentence on remand. In his song,”L’auvergnat”, he talks of one sole person who looked on him with compassion when the police took him away and this could have been his father.
Although some commentators dismiss Brassens’ misdemeanour as no more than the trivial offence of an adolescent, there is no doubt that it caused a major crisis in the lives of the Brassens family, Georges was expelled from school and when he went out in public he was painfully aware of the strong disapproval on the part of the respectable people in his hometown of Sète. It is probable that the trauma of these events, at this formative stage, lingered with him for the rest of his life. He certainly had a permanent resentment of censorious middle class people, whom he characterised as “croquants” and “croquantes”.
Brassens’ first period of refuge – In Aunt Antoinette’s house Feb 1940- March 1943 Brassens decided to move to Paris in February 1940, even though France, at this time, was under threat of German invasion. His Aunt Antoinette Dagrossa, his mother’s sister, who ran a family boarding house at 173 rue d’Alésia, in the 14th arrondissement, had offered him accommodation.
On arrival in Paris, he got himself a job in the Renault car factory. Two months later, in May 1940, the factory was bombed and in the same month the German army entered France followed by the fall of Paris on the fourteenth of June. Brassens returned to Sète in the summer of 1940, but after three months, he returned to occupied Paris.
For the next three years, Georges Brassens had no employment but lived off the hospitality of his aunt. In his song “L’Auvergnat”, Brassens pays tribute to the hostess who fed him when he had no-one else to turn to. This is often seen as referring to his stay with Jeanne Planche, but in view of the hospitality which Aunt Antoinette showed to him over this long period, it is possible that it was his aunt whom he had first in mind. Brassens paid glowing tributes to the warmth of heart and generosity of the Aunt who acted as his "hostess". He admired also her determination and her courage, as she had broken away from an unhappy marriage in Sète and had established an independent life for herself in Paris, at a time when social convention prohibited such a way-out for an unhappy wife. The idle life that she allowed him gave him the opportunity to spend his days in the public library, discovering authors, some of whom would appear later in his songs. He also was writing, publishing his first collection of poems in 1942:, ‘Des coups d’épées dans l’eau’ , soon followed by ‘A la venvole’. Also in these years he had time to improve his musical skills, teaching himself to play his aunt’s old piano.
In March 1943, this easy period in his life ended abruptly, when Brassens lost his freedom. He was requisitioned for the Service de Travail Obligatoire and was forced to go to a camp in Basdorf, Germany to work for the German war effort.
Brassens’ second period of refuge - in Jeanne’s house March 1944 – August 1944
After a year, Brassens was successful in getting a pass for ten days home leave. Predictably, once back in Paris, he did a runner to avoid returning to Germany. In fact he did not run far away from his Aunt’s house. It was Jeanne Planche and her husband, Marcel, who offered to hide him and look after him, as long as necessary, in their cramped little house in a narrow cul de sac - l'impasse Florimont in the 14th arrondissement.
Jeanne was Aunt Antoinette’s dressmaker and Brassens had got to know her through her regular visits. Brassens tells us that, in the course of the years of his stay there, the two of them became good friends, in spite of their thirty year age gap, because they found that they had a lot in common. In fact they became much more than good friends and a passionate love affair developed. The T.V biographies in 2011 revealed an example of the amorous messages that they exchanged. - Brassens tells us in his song, “A l’ombre des maris (1972)”, that one day he discovered that a married woman offered love more exquisite than any other: En ce qui me concerne, ayant un jour compris
Qu’une femme adultère est plus qu’une autre exquise
Je cherche mon bonheur à l’ombre des maris.
The facts of his biography allow us to speculate with whom he had enjoyed this memorable moment, celebrated in this poem, and Jeanne’s name comes immediately to mind.
Photos taken in these early years help to explain Jeanne’s charms.
Her hair had not yet turned grey and we see an attractive woman with a happy personality.
Even in later years when she showed all the signs of her age commentators still refer to her beauty some of which must have been the reflection of her good nature which never left her. This photo of Jeanne and Georges together suggests the ease of their relationship and their pleasure in each other’s company.
Brassens tells us that when he was seeking refuge after going absent without leave, it was a joint offer that he received from Jeanne and her husband, Marcel. We can imagine, however that Jeanne was the moving force, not only because of her personal interest in the young man, but also because it was Jeanne, the strongest character, who always made the decisions. Brassens in the same letter, goes on to praise the generosity of the couple in undertaking to feed an extra person from the ration coupons for two that they were allocated. He also praises their courage in taking the risk of concealing an escapee from a German work camp. These acknowledgements serve to bring out the irony of the situation -that the gesture on Marcel’s part was in protection of a young man who was secretly sleeping with his wife. A commentator in a T.V.documentary (2011) about Brassens tells us that he felt very bad conscience about deceiving Marcel. However, Pierre Onténiente, Brassens’ close friend, who was, in later years, his right-hand man and his private secretary, explained that Jeanne’s husband was either indifferent or unaware, as he was in the habit of starting to get drunk from eight in the morning. Brassens expressed his gratitude to him in his song of 1955 "Chanson pour l'auvergnat" – the nickname apparently for Jeanne's husband.
Brassens’ forced confinement in Jeanne’s house lasted from March 1944 until August 1944. He had the consolation of Jeanne’s love and in this reclusion he continued to write poems and songs. His only musical instrument was a low piece of furniture which he used as a drum, beating out the rhythms. Nevertheless the tensions of these months should not be understated. The strain of this experience can be gauged by the fact that late in his life Brassens recalled to an acquaintance from his early days in Paris, who had just written to him (See Appendix below), that he had endured “this state of siege” for a year and three months. In fact the time that he was shut away totalled five months. The tally in Brassens’ mind no doubt reflected the length of those days when, deprived indefinitely of his liberty, he lived in constant suspense of the possibility of discovery by the Vichy police or the Gestapo, with the terrible consequences that this would imply, not only for him but for Jeanne and Marcel.
Brassens’ extended stay in the Impasse Florimont – 1944 – 1966
In the same letter to a correspondent, Brassens says that it was quite natural that he stayed on at Jeanne’s house in the Impasse Florimont after Paris was liberated and he was able to come out of hiding: Mais même après la Libération, j'ai tout naturellement choisi de demeurer chez Jeanne, malgré l'inconfort notable des lieux, sans électricité, sans eau courante, sans tout-à-l'égout –
It would surprise most people that he chose to go on living there for the very reasons that he mentions. The house was without electricity, running water and proper sanitation. It was in fact a slum and Jeanne made matters worse by the animals that she accumulated there – living side by side in her yard were cats, dogs, hens and Jeanne’s special duck that Brassens made famous in a song. The soft hearted Jeanne could not turn away any strays and she poured out on them the love that she would have lavished on her children, if fate had been kind enough to grant her any. Her boarder, Georges Brassens had an equal attachment to her cats.
If it is a surprise that Brassens chose to live on in these conditions and it is a further surprise how long he lived on there. In fact, he stayed in the run-down cul-de sac, close to Jeanne for another twenty years, even after he had become rich and internationally famous.
Brassens explained in a radio interview that he stayed on there because he felt comfortable. In the letter to his acquaintance of time past, he said that by remaining there he was able to keep his little routines, because the local residents respected what he termed the private territory of his daily life. There, he was near to his friends him, including those, who had just returned from the German labour, among whom his close friend, Pierre Onténiente. With a number of these friends he attempted to launch an anarchist movement.
The most important person in this company was Jeanne, who gave him great love and support. A less romantic view of this appeared in the recent T.V. documentary on his life. This pointed out that for ten years Jeanne kept Georges who had no income and who made little effort to find some kind of job which would at least allow him to pay his keep. Unkind people could say that throughout all these years, he was Jeanne’s kept man.
From an artistic point of view it was vital that Jeanne gave him the encouragement to persevere in his composition and to go on trying to get his songs played. Brassens was lacking in confidence and experienced nervousness and panic when he had to perform in public (a nervousness which is still evident in his heavy perspiration sometimes as he performs in his later years).continuing his study of poetry and was working on his songs. Jeanne gave him vital encouragement and bought him a guitar (on the death of his Aunt Antoinette in July 1946, he inherited her piano). They battled on for over five years in the face of refusals and disappointments and all the while, he did not earn a penny.
The turning point came in in March 1951, when the famous French singer Patachou sang his songs at her cabaret and called him up on stage to sing. He was greeted with acclaim and it was through Patachou that he had met the bass player, Pierre Nicolas, an accomplished musician, who would become his accompanist and give him the solid support he needed to perform in public.
Below right - In later years, Brassens rehearsing with Pierre Nicolas.
From 1952 onwards, Brassens was earning enough not only to pay his rent and his keep but to make improvements in Jeanne’s home, installing electricity and running water.
In 1955, he bought Jeanne and Marcel Planche’s home for them and also the neighbouring house as an extension for their house, into which he himself was able to move. In his private cine-films, we see Jeanne in the smart clothes that Brassens was now able to buy her, accompanied by Marcel – and dog- on an outing to the Bois de Boulogne, to where they were driven in a fine car.
L’Impasse Florimont continued to be Brassens’ home, although he was absent for increasing periods of time as his successful career involved him in tours both within France and abroad. In 1960, around the time when Jeanne turned seventy, Brassens wrote the touching song:"Jeanne" to celebrate the infinite warmth and kindliness of her nature. In their personal cine-films, we see Brassens constantly putting his arms around her and his hands upon her, getting in return more than once a flirtatious glance - the body language of two people, whose feelings of intimacy had not diminished.
This situation, strange in many ways, finally ended in 1966. On the 7th May of the previous year Marcel Planche had died. On the 2th May 1966, to the dismay of Brassens, Jeanne married again at the age of 75. Her new husband was only 37 years old. In a show of disapproval, Brassens moved out of Jeanne’s house. (See the postscript below)
On the topic of fidelity, It has to be said that from as early as 1945 Brassens had conducted clandestine love affairs, while living with Jeanne. He would seek to smuggle the women into his room secretly so as not to arouse Jeanne’s jealous anger. The TV biographies of 2011, tell how the gentle natured Jeanne became very angry when she learnt of his relationships with other women.
Jeanne’s new marriage was to prove short-lived. Just two years later, she was taken ill and underwent a gall-bladder operation, from which she failed to recover. She died on the 24th October 1968 and Georges Brassens was at her bedside.
The photo on the left looks back to the days when Georges first met Jeanne.
As we grow older we necessarily live in the continuity of the full span of our lives. When Brassens looked at Jeanne that last time, no doubt he saw also the bright-eyed woman, younger than her years, whose first warm embrace of illicit love, at number 173 rue d’Alésia, had introduced him to a deep and enduring relationship. Jeanne’s death at the age of 77 greatly affected Brassens.
Postscript
After Brassens finally moved out of the Impasse Florimont in 1966, following Jeanne’s remarriage he bought a more modern apartment. However he did not find this style of living to his taste and he sold up three years later to buy a house in the 15th arrondissement. In the letter to a personal correspondent, quoted several times above in this biography, he explained that, after his temporary removal, he had no intention of leaving the district of Paris where he felt at ease and which was now his permanent home. We note the continuing pull of this neighbourhood where he had lived with Jeanne.
APPENDIX
The following is the letter, which I have mentioned several times in the piece above. Brassens wrote it in reply to the reminiscences of an acquaintance from his early days in Paris. Brassens wrote an appreciative letter that is full of biographical insights:
Cher Voisin, Bonjour,
Je trouve bien émouvant que vous évoquiez, et sur un ton si chaleureusement intimiste, cette époque où je pouvais flâner nonchalamment dans mon quartier du 14e arrondissement. Et de penser que nous nous sommes croisés, entre la rue Didot et la rue de Vanves, que nous aurions pu faire un bout de conversation place du lieutenant Piobetta, face à cette caserne de pompiers, à quatre pas de ma maison.
Car effectivement c'est bien là que j'ai habité, impasse Florimont, au no9, devenu depuis le no7, pendant 22 ans. Lorsqu'à 18 ans, en février 1940, j'ai quitté ma ville natale de Sète pour monter à Paris, il n'y avait qu'un seul point de chute possible. Ma tante, Antoinette Dagrossa, soeur de ma mère, possédait une pension de famille au 173, rue d'Alésia. Déjà à l'occasion de vacances ou de l'Exposition Universelle, tous les membres de la famille qui passaient à Paris étaient inévitablement logés chez cette tante chaleureuse, restée très attachée à sa soeur et à la famille. Moi-même, lors de deux précédents voyages dans la capitale, j'avais pu apprécier la générosité mais aussi la rigueur et la détermination de cette femme de tête. Pour fuir un mariage inconfortable, elle avait choisi de quitter Sète et de se reconstruire une vie marquée par l'autonomie, ce qui était très courageux dans le contexte de l'époque et était de nature à soulever mon estime. J'étais d'autant plus heureux d'habiter chez elle que j'avais libre accès à un piano d'une tenue convenable, sur lequel, grâce à des méthodes dénichées aux Puces de Vanves, j'ai pu combler le gouffre de mon ignorance musicale.
J'ai habité rue d'Alésia durant trois années et c'est pendant cette période que j'ai fait la connaissance de Jeanne Planche, couturière attitrée de tante Antoinette, devenue son amie au fil des années. Bien que 30 ans d'âge nous séparaient, des affinités multiples tissaient entre nous des liens certains.
En mars 1943, je fus contraint au S.T.O., le service du travail obligatoire. Après un an, les Allemands accordèrent parcimonieusement des permissions. Très peu retournèrent au camp. Pour ma part, il n'était pas question que je me réinstalle chez Antoinette, où j'aurais été vite repris et aurais dangereusement compromis mon hôtesse.
C'est alors que Jeanne et son mari Marcel offrirent de m'héberger, de me cacher, dans leur maisonnette, pourtant déjà bien exiguë de l'impasse Florimont. Outre le courage et la générosité de m'accorder de l'espace et d'assumer le risque, il allait bien vite se poser le problème de la nourriture, puisqu'ils acceptaient que l'on mange à trois avec des coupons d'alimentation émis pour deux personnes. La bonne Antoinette et ma brave mère aideront dans la mesure de leurs moyens par quelques colis occasionnels.
L'état de siège dura un an et deux mois. Mais même après la Libération, j'ai tout naturellement choisi de demeurer chez Jeanne, malgré l'inconfort notable des lieux, sans électricité, sans eau courante, sans tout-à-l'égout. Ce n'est qu'à partir de 1952, grâce à mes premiers cachets, que j'ai pu progressivement rehausser le niveau de confort de la maisonnette, jusqu'à acheter la maison mitoyenne pour agrandir.
Et ce n'est que lorsque Jeanne, devenue veuve, a décidé de se remarier, en 1966, que j'ai choisi de quitter l'impasse, mais sans m'éloigner du quartier, que j'ai toujours habité par la suite. Ainsi, j'ai pu pour un temps et dans la mesure du possible, préserver mes petites habitudes, les résidents de ma paroisse respectant généralement, tout comme vous l'avez fait vous-même, le territoire privé de mon quotidien.
This is an amusing song about the complication of extra-marital relationships among people most typically in the world of entertainment and the arts. In a programme shown last year on French TV, « Regard de Brassens », Brassens, in a recorded interview, told us frankly that he deliberately chose affairs with married women, because falling in love with a single woman could mean marriage and children and loss of his liberty. In the light of this principle, the song « A l’ombre des maris » has a comic irony that Brassens must have enjoyed.
Les dragons de vertu n'en prennent pas ombrage,
May dragons of virtue take no offence at this:
Si j'avais eu l'honneur de commander à bord,
If I’d had the honour to have command on board
À bord du Titanic quand il a fait naufrage,
On board the Titanic when it was wrecked at sea,
J'aurais crié : "Les femm's adultères d'abord !"
I would have yelled: “All adulterous women go first”
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
Car, pour combler les voeux, calmer la fièvre ardente
For to sate the desirs, calm the fevers that rage
Du pauvre solitaire et qui n'est pas de bois,
In a poor lonely soul, who is made not of stone(1)
Nulle n'est comparable à l'épouse inconstante.
Nothing can compare with an inconstant wife.
Femmes de chefs de gare,(2) c'est vous la fleur d'époi. (3)
Station-masters’ wives, you’re the pick of the crop.
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
Quant à vous, messeigneurs, aimez à votre guise,
As for you, lordly priests, love in your kind of way
En ce qui me concerne, ayant un jour compris
As for me, from the day, I grew to understand
Qu'une femme adultère est plus qu'une autre exquise,
An adulterous wife is exquisite as none other
Je cherche mon bonheur à l'ombre des maris.
I seek my greatest bliss in the husbands’ shadow.
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
À l'ombre des maris, mais cela va sans dire,
In the husbands’ shadow, but I don’t need to say.
Pas n'importe lesquels, je les trie, les choisis.
Not just any husband, I sort them, I choose them
Si madame Dupont,(4) d'aventure, m'attire,
If it’s madame Dupont, who p’rhaps catches my eye,
Il faut que, par surcroît, Dupont me plaise aussi !
It’s vital besides that I like Dupont as well !
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
Il convient que le bougre ait une bonne poire
It needs that the fellow has a nice enough mug
Sinon, me ravisant, je détale à grands pas,
Otherwise, changing tack, I clear off like a shot.
Car je suis difficile et me refuse à boire
For I am most choosy and I refuse to drink
Dans le verr' d'un monsieur qui ne me revient pas.
From the glass of a man, whose looks put me right off.
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
Ils sont loins mes débuts où, manquant de pratique
Long past my beginnings when lacking in practice
Sur des femmes de flics (5) je mis mon dévolu.
After wives of policemen, I went out on the trawl.
Je n'étais pas encore ouvert à l'esthétique,
I had not yet achieved a sense of aesthetics.
Cette faute de goût je ne la commets plus.
This error of good taste, I don’t make any more.
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
Oui, je suis tatillon, pointilleux, mais j'estime
Yes I am finicky, demanding, but believe
Que le mari doit être un gentleman complet,
That the husband must be a gentleman complete,
Car on finit tous deux par devenir intimes
For you finish up both getting extremely close
À force, à force de se passer le relais.(6)
Through -Through the changeovers of our mutual relay .
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
Mais si l'on tombe, hélas ! sur des maris infâmes,
But if you come across, alas ! husbands most vile,
Certains sont si courtois, si bons si chaleureux,
Still some are so polite, so welcoming, so kind
Que, même après avoir cessé d'aimer leur femme,
That even after having stopped loving their wives
On fait encor semblant uniquement pour eux.
You act as though still you’re the one for them alone.
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
C'est mon cas ces temps-ci, je suis triste, malade,
That’s my case at present, I am sick and downcast
Quand je dois faire honneur à certaine pécore,
When I have to perform with one crazy female
Mais, son mari et moi, c'est Oreste et Pylade,(7)
But her husband and I, we’re Oreste and Pylade,
Et, pour garder l'ami, je la cajole encore.
And to stay with the friend, I fondle her still.
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
Non contente de me déplaire, elle me trompe,
Not content with her vexing, she’s deceiving me
Et les jours où, furieux, voulant tout mettre à bas
And on days I get mad, want to have it all out
Je crie : "La coupe est pleine, il est temps que je rompe !"
I shout : “The cup is full, it’s time for us to break!”
Le mari me supplie : "Non, ne me quittez pas !"
The husband beseeches: “No don’t you desert me!”
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
Et je reste, et, tous deux, ensemble on se flagorne
And I stay, and, we both, butter up the other.
Moi, je lui dis : "C'est vous mon cocu préféré."
I say to him : My favourite cuckold is you
Il me réplique alors : "Entre toutes mes cornes,
He replies to me then : Of all the horns I wear
Celles que je vous dois, mon cher, me sont sacrées."
The ones I owe to you, dear friend, are sacred.
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
Je suis derrière...
I am right behind her.
Et je reste et, parfois, lorsque cette pimbêche
And I stay and sometimes when that jumped-up creature
S'attarde en compagnie de son nouvel amant,
Lingers late in her latest lover’s company
Que la nurse est sortie, le mari à la pêche,(8)
When the nanny is out, the husband’s gone fishing
C'est moi, pauvre de moi ! qui garde les enfants.
It is me, poor old me, who looks after the kids
Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère,
Cast not a stone at the adulterous woman
1972 - Fernande
Translation Notes for A l’ombre des maris
1) As a figurative expression for “unfeeling”. Brassens uses “made of wood” but as wooden in English suggests awkward, I have substituted “stone”.
2) The stationmaster is a symbol of the deceived husband because of a line in a well-known vulgar song: “Il est cocu, le chef de gare” – he is cuckolded the stationmaster.
3) Fleur d’époi is a complimentary term, which would tell us that wives of stationmasters dress with the utmost elegance. However there is a secondary meaning because “l’époi” is the tip of a stag’s horns which are the symbol of cuckoldry.
4) Madame Dupont – the name is chosen as a common French surname, just as, in English, we would use Mrs Smith or Mrs Jones for a general name.
5) Femmes de flics. This disparaging verse about the wives of cops is somewhat gratuitous, but Brassens often felt the need to express his distaste for the police
6) À force, à force de se passer le relais. - Brassens’ repetition at the start of this line might suggest hesitation about giving erotic detail of the actual arrangements, with the passing over of the wife from one to the other. When I was struggling with this line, a little linguistic point struck me: English terminology is “pass the baton” a French word of course. The French, however , do not use it saying: “Passer le témoin” – pass the witness.
7) Oreste and Pylade -are characters in classical mythology (and in Racine’s Andromaque) who typify friendship. Orestes was the son of Agamemnon who was murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra. When he reached adulthood, Orestes returned to his native Mycenae to seek revenge for the death of his father. With the collusion of his sister, Electra and of his cousin and close friend, Pylades, Orestes killed his own mother, Clytemnestra and also her lover, Aegisthus. Pylades became the husband of Electra.
8) le mari à la pêche – There is a line of a song : Le cocu qui s'ennoblit en pêchant.
“Don Juan” is the title song of Georges Brassens’ last album in 1976, (five years before his death). The first two lines of each verse describe incidents, mainly humorous, when people have bent the rules, disobeyed orders, or flaunted convention to allow life to be more civilised. The remaining lines of each verse tell the continuous tale of a womaniser making a conquest, beginning with his first approach to the girl in verse one and finishing with the climax in verse five. The last verse sums up the theme, which is Brassens' plea for a less judgemental and more tolerant view of life: This modern Don Juan, whose free lifestyle offends the social conventions, is drawn to to an unlikely girl, to whom fate has not been kind, unconcerned about the adverse opinion of the others in his group. She accepts his advances and they share a vital experience of happiness.
The natural and ecstatically satisfying fulfilment of this first act of love of a novice girl in the arms of an experienced man, who felt an overpowering compulsion towards her, would seem to make nonsense of the repeated statement of her ugliness. Human attractiveness is certainly composed of something much more complex and interesting than the presentation of several physical features. The common sayings that ponder this truth of our everyday experience are:
La beauté est affaire de goût. - Beauty is in eye of the beholder.
Gloire à qui freine à mort, de peur d'écrabouiller
Praise to those who slam brakes, for fear of squashing flat
Le hérisson perdu, le crapaud fourvoyé !
The little hedgehog lost, the toad gone the wrong way
Et gloire à Don Juan, d'avoir un jour souri
And praise to Don Juan, for having smiled one day
À celle à qui les autr's n'attachaient aucun prix !
At the one whom the rest did not rate in the least!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.
Gloire au flic qui barrait le passage aux autos
Praise to the cop who stopped the cars from going through
Pour laisser traverser les chats de Léautaud(1) !
To let all the cats of Léautaud get across!
Et gloire à Don Juan d'avoir pris rendez-vous,
And praise to Don Juan for the date he made with
Avec la délaissée, que l'amour désavoue !
The girl left on the shelf, from whom love turns away!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.
Gloire au premier venu qui passe et qui se tait
Praise to the first person who walks by with no word
Quand la canaille crie : "Haro sur le baudet(2) !"
When the wild rabble yells: «Get him- let’s string him up! »
Et gloire à Don Juan pour ses galants discours
And praise to Don Juan for his amorous words
À celle à qui les autr's faisaient jamais la cour !
To the one whom the rest never thought worth courting!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut(3).
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.
Et gloire à ce curé sauvant son ennemi
And praise goes to that priest saving his enemy
Lors du massacre de la Saint-Barthélémy(4) !
The day of the mass’cre of Saint-Barthélémy !
Et gloire à Don Juan qui couvrit de baisers
And praise to Don Juan who covered in kisses
La fille que les autr's refusaient d'embrasser !
The girl that the others refused a single one!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.
Et gloire à ce soldat qui jeta son fusil
And praise to the soldier who threw aside his gun
Plutôt que d'achever l'otage à sa merci !
Rather than finish off (the) hostage at his mercy!
Et gloire à Don Juan d'avoir osé trousser(5)
And praise to Don Juan for daring pull right up
Celle dont le jupon restait toujours baissé !
The skirts of the girl who wore them demurely low!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her
Gloire à la bonne sœur qui, par temps pas très chaud
Praise to the kind nun, who, in weather none too hot
Dégela dans sa main le pénis du manchot
Thawed by hand the penis of the man with no arms.
Et gloire à Don Juan qui fit reluire un soir
And praise to Don Juan who buffed up to delight (6)
Ce cul désherité ne sachant que s'asseoir !
This neglected bum whose sole use was to sit on!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her.
Gloire à qui n'ayant pas d'idéal sacro-saint
Praise to those who having no sacrosanct ideals
Se borne à ne pas trop emmerder ses voisins !
Just seek not to give too much grief to those around!
Et gloire à Don Juan qui rendit femme celle
And praise to Don Juan who made into a woman
Qui, sans lui, quelle horreur, serait morte pucelle(7) !
She, who, but for him, would have never known man's love!
Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut.
That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her. (8).
1976 Album -Don Juan
TRANSLATION NOTES
1) Les chats de Léautaud – The writer and critic Paul Léautaud, who died in 1956, was a reclusive who was said to have owned at least 300 cats and 150 dogs in his lifetime.
2) Quand la canaille crie : "Haro sur le baudet !" - This is the rallying cry of a lynch mob and they are saying “Let’s string up the donkey”. Brassens’ audience would have understood this reference immediately. It is a line in La Fontaine’s very famous fable: “ Les Animaux Malades de la Peste”. The kingdom had been hit by a terrible plague and the Lion King decided it was God’s punishment for wrongs they had done and asked all to confess. The King began by telling of the sheep and shepherds he had eaten and the other powerful predators of court made similar confessions. All the self flatterers of the court agreed that there was no harm in these deeds. Then came the turn of the humble donkey and he confessed that he had once eaten a mouthful of grass from some-one else’s meadow :
« Je tondis de ce pré la largeur de ma langue.
Je n'en avais nul droit puisqu'il faut parler net.
A ces mots, on cria haro sur le Baudet. »
The rich and powerful courtiers were in uproar at the crime of the poor donkey:
“Sa peccadille fut jugé un cas pendable.
Manger l'herbe d'autrui! Quel crime abominable!
Rien que la mort n'était capable
D'expier son forfait : on le lui fit bien voir. »
So they hanged the donkey. La Fontaine dangerously explains how his fable relates to justice in the court of Louis XIV:
“Selon que vous serez puissant ou misérable,
Les jugements de cour vous rendront blanc ou noir. »
3) Cette fille est trop vilaine, il me la faut – This Don Juan finds a strong attraction in this girl that he can’t explain and he is risking the derision of every one of his mates in seeking love with this girl.
4) Massacre de la Saint-Barthélémy- On the 23rd August (Saint-Barthélémy’s Day) 1572, a pogrom was launched against the Huguenots of France . The death toll has been estimated as high as 30,000 and the Protestant movement in France was effectively wiped out.
5) Trousser celle dont le jupon –“ Trousser les jupes” means to tuck up the skirts “trousser une femme” means to lift a woman’s skirts. Trousser also has the meaning of “to stuff” in cooking e.g. “ trousser un poulet” and from this the verb “trousser” has the same vulgar usage as the English translation. From this double entendre comes a hidden message that the French audience will discreetly understand- that he made vigorous love to the girl at this point. For my translation, I stick to the first meaning for the sake of the following line.
6) fit reluire - to polish up (furniture etc) . As there is the sense of rubbing up, the words are found in vulgar usage with erotic connotations. We have, therefore, another double entendre as in (5). In this case it is to say that he brought the girl to orgasm. As it would be wrong to make the hidden message explicit in the translation, I have kept to the literal meaning - plus a bit of vagueness.
7) serait morte pucelle - In my translation, I have chosen not to use the word “virgin”, as I feel that the issue of virginity has ceased to be a preoccupation with educated people in the course of the last 50 years. When I included this word in a draft, I had the sense of an unpleasant male chauvinism.
8) That girl is too downright ugly, I must have her. - I hope that the refrain repeated at the end of the poem means that the man continues under the spell of the girl after their night together. If so there is the nice irony that the “ugly” girl has seduced Don Juan! This song makes me think of “Mysogynie à Part”, where, in a background of male chauvinism, the girl who has been treated with disrespect comes off best in my mind:
http://brassenswithenglish.blogspot.com/2010/11/misogynie-part-setting-misogyny-aside.html
I had always seen this poem as a tribute to the love and beauty that certain women can bring into our lives. The mention of Dante’s Beatrice and of Flora, the Goddess of flowers established this theme in my mind and I assumed that the other names, most of which were little more than impressive sounds to me, also illustrated this theme. Coupled with this idea is the sad realisation that with time all this must pass away. For those who use the English translation, this regret, is expressed in the wistful poetic line of D.G. Rossetti’s “But where are the snows of yester-year?” – A line that is engraved in the memory of most of us.
In doing a translation of my own, I have found it necessary to look into the names I had always skipped over previously, in order to see why they recommended themselves to Villon’s inspiration. From this I soon became disabused of the idea that Villon’s life-view was one of beauty and love. Behind the names of the ladies he had chosen were illustrations of deceit, betrayal, corruption and also of incredible cruelty from individuals and above all from the rulers and officials of church and state. A study of Villon’s biography showed that these were the terms under which the poet had lived his life. For people under the arbitrary authoritarianism of late medieval Europe, the rhetorical question in the last line of Villon’s poem was a prosaic statement of fact that life was short, nasty and meaningless: “But where are last year’s snows gone?
BALLADE DES DAMES DU TEMPS JADIS
Dites-moi où, n'en quel pays,
Tell me where, or in what land,
Est Flora la belle Romaine,(1)
Is Flora, the beauteous Roman
Archipiada(2), ne Thaïs(3),
Archipiada, or Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine,
Who was her equal in beauty. – (Lit. “Who was her full cousin”)
Echo(4), parlant quand bruit on mène
Echo speaking when sound came to her
Dessus rivière ou sur étang,
From across river or over pond, - (Because she was a water nymph)
Qui beauté eut trop plus qu'humaine.
Who beauty had far more than human
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? –(Antan at Villon's time meant "last year")
But where are last year’s snows gone?
Qui beauté eut trop plus qu'humaine.
Who beauty had far more than human
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?
But where are last year’s snows gone?
Où est la très sage Hélois(5),
Where is the most learned Heloise
Pour qui châtré fut et puis moine
For whom was neutered at Saint Denis
Pierre Abélard(5) a Saint Denis ?
Pierre Abélard, monk from then on
Pour son amour eut cette essoine. –( « essoine » Old Fr. word means ordeal)
For love of her, suffered this outrage.
Semblablement, ou est la reine(6)
And just the same, where is the queen
Qui commanda que Buridan
Who commanded that Buridan
Fut jeté en un sac en Seine ?(6)
Be thrown down in a sack in the Seine
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ?
But where are last year’s snows gone?
Fut jeté en un sac en Seine ?
Be thrown down in a sack in the Seine
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan ?
But where are last year’s snows gone?
La reine Blanche(7) comme un lis
Good Queen Blanche, white as a lily
Qui chantait a voix de sirène,
With voice sweet like a water-nymph’s song
Berthe au grand pied(8), Béatrix(9), Alis (10),
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
Haramburgis (10) qui tint le Maine,
Haramburgis who ruled o’er the Maine
Et Jeanne, la bonne Lorraine(11).
And Joan, the good woman of Lorraine
Qu'Anglais brûlèrent à Rouen ;
Whom Englishmen burnt at Rouen
Où sont-ils, où, Vierge souveraine ?
Where are they, where,sovereign Virgin?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ?
But where are last year’s snows gone?
Ou sont-ils, où, Vierge souveraine ?
Where are they, where, sovereign Virgin?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan ?
But where are last year’s snows gone?
Prince(12), n'enquerrez de semaine
Oh prince, pray inquire not in this week
Ou elles sont, ni de cet an,
Where they may be, nor yet this year
Que ce refrain ne vous remaine : - (remaine = ramène)
Lest this refrain comes in answer
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ?
But where are last year’s snows gone?
Que ce refrain ne vous remaine :
Lest this refrain comes in answer
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan ?
But where are last year’s snows gone?
TRANSLATION NOTES FOLLOWED BY BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
THE COLOURFUL HISTORIES OF THE PEOPLE REFERRED TO IN THE POEM
1) Flora la belle Romaine(1) - His description of Flora as a beautiful woman of Rome, tells us that Villon is not referring to the Flora, who,in Roman mythology, was the goddess of flowers and spring. Instead, a courtesan of Rome, who was very successful and accumulated great wealth, gave herself the name of Flora. She bequeathed her fortune to the city and funded the Floralies, the flower festivals named after her. We note that Villon begins with a lady who made her career in prostitution.
2) Archipiada- Archipiada is, in fact, Alcibiades who was a famous Athenian male but because of a mistranslation of the ancient text was thought by scholars in the Middle Ages to be an Athenian woman of great beauty. As a result, Villon includes a man in his list of ladies of a bygone age. Archipiada came from one of the leading aristocratic families of Athens and became the disciple and friend of Socrates. He was renowned for his strikingly good looks and was part of the gilded youth of the city, involved in numerous scandals. It is possible that his lifestyle might have given rise to some ambiguity about his sexuality in those days as well.
3) Thaïs: Thais was a Greek courtesan, famous for her beauty. She lived during the time of Alexander the Great (356- 323BC) and accompanied him on his campaigns. She was later the lover and possibly a wife of Ptolemy 1, King of Egypt. This is the second courtesan in Villon’s list of illustrious ladies. It is presumed that there were many women who expected money for their favours in the Paris underworld that Villon frequented.
4) Echo : Echo was a beautiful nymph who had one failing: she was fond of talking, and always wanted to have the last word. One day Juno was looking for her husband, who was amusing himself in the company of the nymphs. Echo kept talking to Juno until the nymphs made their escape. When Juno discovered Echo’s trick, she told her: "You shall forfeit the use of that tongue with which you have cheated me, except for that one purpose you are so fond of answering back. You shall still have the last word, but no power to speak first." As a result of Juno's spell on her, Echo could speak only when spoken to.
5) Hèloise (1101-1164) was the beloved niece of an important cleric, Canon Fulbert. We are told that she was no mean beauty and was outstanding for her learning. She fell in love with her much older tutor, Pierre Abélard (1079- 1142), who was a notable theologian.They became lovers and she had a child. Her family strongly disapproved. It is suspected that Canon Fulbert paid some men to attack and castrate Abélard. After this mutilation, Abélard became a monk. The correspondence of the lovers survived. We note the brutal savagery of the times and particularly of a man of religion.
6) la reine qui commanda que Buridan fût jeté en un sac en Seine - At the end of the reign of Philip IV , who reigned from 1284 until 1314,two of his daughters in law, who later were briefly queens of France were involved in a lurid scandal. The princesses were Margaret, wife of the future King Louis X, and Blanche, wife of the future King Charles IV. A third daughter-in-law, Jeanne, Countess of Burgundy, wife of the future Philip V was accused of knowledge of these affairs. These royal ladies had enjoyed orgies with invited lovers and afterwards had disposed of them, by having them tied in sacks and thrown into the Seine to drown. The story is told that the philosopher, Buridan, discovered these secrets and went to the Tower to enjoy the pleasures but to survive had arranged for friends waiting in a boat below to break his fall and save him from drowning.
In 1314, Margaret of Burgundy and Blanche of Burgundy were accused of adultery, and their alleged conspirator lovers were tortured, flayed and executed. Margaret of Burgundy was imprisoned along with her sister-in-law Blanche of Burgundy. The third princess, Jeanne, was put under house arrest.
In 1315, after her husband had become king, Margaret was strangled, allegedly on her husband's orders, in order to allow him to remarry. The second princess, Blanche, was rejected as wife by her husband and three months after he ascended to the throne (1322), Charles IV obtained an annulment from the pope. The third princess, Jeanne, was more fortunate. Her husband was led by his forceful wife and stood by her. He used his influence to have her name cleared and to allow her to return to court. She was queen during Philip V’s reign from 1317- 1322.
This sensational historical scandal has become known as “The Affair of the Tour de Nesle”.
We note the immorality, corruption and brutality taking place in the autocratic Christian monarchies of Europe in the middle Ages.
7)La reine Blanche comme un lis - Blanche de Castille (1188-1252 was the wife of Louis VIII of France(1187 -1226). She was an extraordinary woman and was one of the most dominant characters in Europe during the first half of the 13th century.
She was the daughter of the King of Castille and granddaughter of King Henry II of England. In May 1200,as part of an attempted political settlement between France and England, she was married to Louis, the eldest son of King Philip II of France. She was then 12 years old. On the death of King John of England in October 1216, her husband Louis, claimed the English throne based on the Engish lineage of his wife and he led an invasion of England. As Louis’ father refused to back his son’s claim, it was the formidable Blanche, who organized his military support from Calais. Their venture met with failure.
Blanche became Queen of France in 1223, when Louis VIII ascended to the throne. However,he died a mere three years later in 1226, when their eldest son, Louis, was only 12 years old. During his illness before his death, Louis had shown his confidence in Blanche by decreeing that she should be appointed regent until Louis IX came of age in 1234.
In this period, Blanche again showed her metal breaking up a league of barons that threatened the authority of the monarchy (1226). She also repelled an attack from England (1230). Even when Louis became king in his own right, she remained a power in the background and he was overawed by her. When Louis married, Blanche ruled that when she was in court, she did not wish to see the new Queen Margaret except when he “went to lie with her”.
The Queen mother assumed the regency again in 1248, when the French king, a faithful servant of the Pope, absented himself from his kingdom to lead the 7th Crusade to the Holy Land – of which she strongly disapproved. In the King’s absence, she kept the country firmly under control and extorted from the people the crippling sums of money, required to finance his mission. This included the ransom paid for the captured Louis.The second regency ended with her death in 1252.
Villon gives Blanche some charm. He says her voice had a magical sweetness.
He also says that she had the pure white complexion of a well bred nooblelady. Some attributed this to her English blood, even though the English royal family had been French since the French conquest and occupation of England in 1066.
Villon may not have any qualms about another feature of her history:the period of her reign marked one of the greatest crimes against humanity in European history.
In the 13th century, the Languedoc area of France was known for the sophistication of its cultural life and the tolerance and liberalism of its people. Here a new religion was born, which put forward new ideas at variance with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, some of whose practices they also criticized. The name given to these people was "Cathars".
By the early 13th Century Catharism was probably the major religion in languedoc.
In 1208, Pope Innocent III ordered a crusade against the Cathars. A holy army was sent to wipe out the heretics, led first by clerics but later taken up by the Kings of France. Their first atrocities, the slaughter of 20,000 people in Beziers, and the mass bonfire of heretics at Minerve, had taken place earlier in 1209 and 1210, but the husband of Blanche of Castille was at his father’s side, when Philip II joined the Vatican’s crusade in 1217.
It was during Blanche’s first regency that the Dominican Inquisition against Languedoc was instituted, when all Cathars who refused to renounce their faith were hanged or were burnt at the stake.
The terror continued throughout the years of her reign, including the burning of 200 Cathar leaders outside Carcassonne Castle in 1244.
It gives one pause for thought that the illustrious lady with the pale complexion and beautiful voice helped to institute the tradition of ideological genocide so often repeated since, not only by the Church.
8)Berthe au grand pied – Bertrada of Laon. She was the wife of Pépin le Bref, named on account of his short stature, who had the title King of the Franks from 752-768. There is a Latin description for her that means “Queen of the goose-foot”. I have not found any reference to her beauty in the historical accounts, and the photo of her statue gives no indication. Bertrada and Pépin were the parents of Charlemagne, who was crowned head of the Holy Roman Empire by the Pope in 800, consolidating the united absolute power of sword and cross.
Perhaps it was the major historical stature of her son that merited Villon’s inclusion of Queen Berthe.
9)Beatrix.- This is Dante’s Beatrice, a young lady of Florence, Béatrice Portinari, who lived from about 1265-1290. He loved her from afar and she became for him the incarnation of beauty and kindness. He paid tribute to her in his writings, including in the lines of the Divine Comedy
10) Alis Haramburgis - The correct spelling is Erembourg apparently. It is difficult to find any details of this lady. On the Internet, there is Alice of Anjou who lived from about 1107 – 1155 - the daughter of Fulk, Count of Anjou and Erembourg.
11) Jeanne, la bonne Lorraine- This was of course Joan of Arc, who was born in what is now Neufchâteau sur la Meuse and therefore in Lorraine. So many people have written about her that there must be someone who has made claims about her beauty. Nevertheless, I have not found one to quote.
It is thought that Villon was born on the day that Joan was executed. My most poignant memory from my recent research is that when Joan was tied to the stake, she asked to have a cross held in front of her eyes as the flames burnt up her living body.
Villon’s line suggests that her execution was an act of national revenge by the English. However, her condemnation was as a heretic, who had been shown in an ecclesiastical court to have offended the teachings of the Church. The fate she suffered was the normal, routine application of holy justice, as was being served out to the men, women and children of Languedoc. The majority of us will ponder the darkness of soul of those who could perpetrate this grotesque act of cruelty against a teenage girl.
12) Prince- Villon writes this poem for the King. He dedicated many of his poems to the King or to some other member of the royal family. This was normal when power was centred on a monarch ruling by divine right. Under the feudal system, vassals were required to court favour.
The biography of François Villon The resources for a biography of Villon are limited. It has to be compiled using facts and events that he mentions in his own writings – which may or may not be true - and from the appearance of his name in legal records, mainly as a consequence of his misdemeanours in the eyes of the authorities. Different biographers stress different detail and give different interpretations. From this sometimes confusion of sources, I found it necessary to fix the biography at least in my own mind for my interpretation of the poem. The following are the biographical notes that I put together:
The principal dates of his life
Villon was born François de Montcorbier in 1431 in Paris but no record of his death has been found. The last evidence about him is dated 1463. The poet was, therefore, only about the age of 32 or 33, when he disappeared for good.
Villon's childhood
He was born to very young parents, but he lost his father when he was still a boy and his mother (who was still living when Villon was 30 years old) had to struggle against great poverty and the privations of life in a country where war had been raging as long as people could remember. This is known in history as the Hundred Years’ War (1337- 1453).
For a reason that is still not known, while still a boy, he left his mother to go and live with Guillaume de Villon, who was chaplain at the church of Saint-Benoît-le-Bétourné. François later adopted the surname of this eminent priest, whom he described as “more than a father”.
Villon’s youth
His guardian saw that he had a good education. Villon started his schooling at the age of 12 and he finished, nine years later, with a Master of Arts degree from the University of Paris(1452). This qualification could have opened for him a career in law or the church. Unfortunately, the conditions at the time were not favourable. Between 1451 -1454, there was conflict between Paris University and the king, Charles VII, which led to riots, strikes, and university shutdown. In his writing, Villon ruefully admits that he allowed this disruption to distract him from his studies and from the goals that he had previously set himself.
Nothing is known about Villon for the period from 1453 until the middle of 1455. In some of the fiction written about him, there is an assumption that he lived a life of wild adventure and excess typical of many students with no work to engage their time and free of all responsibility. Other scholars have vehemently rejected this depiction, which has become part of the legend of Villon. Neverthless, the political conditions described above would have provided a favourable background to such a lifestyle and Villon’s clash with authority in June 1455 would seem to illustrate a disorderly way of life.
Villon’s first major misdeed – 5th June 1455
Villon’s first clash with authority could have involved drunkenness and sexual jealousy. Villon was on the streets of Paris with a perhaps doubtful priest and a girl called Isabeau, when they met a Breton graduate also with a priest, whose name was Philippe Sermoise. There was an argument that developed into a brawl and knives were drawn. Sermoise was alleged to have drawn first blood, cutting Villon’s mouth. The latter retaliated by throwing a stone at Sermoise which hit him in the face causing injuries from which the priest later died. Villon ran away from Paris and a sentence was passed on him, banning his return to the city.
This ban was lifted in January 1456 in response to a petition listing Villon’s scholastic record and also claiming that Sermoise had pardoned him before his death.
Villon’s second major misdeed – Christmas Eve 1456
In the Christmas period of 1456, Villon took part, in the company of other students, in a burglary from the chapel of the College de Navarre, when 500 gold coins were stolen. At first, the gang seemed to have got away with the crime as the loss was not discovered until March 1457. Two months later, in May 1457, Guy Tabarie,a student collaborator let slip details of the robbery and was arrested. In the following year, he would name Villon as the ringleader.
Villon attempted to give himself an alibi by claiming to have been at home composing his famous poem “Le Lais”, at the time when other people were rifling the coffers of the College de Navarre. In fact, this is generally accepted as fabrication and that he began this poem later, in the early months of 1457.
“Le Lais” was written to say farewell to his friends as he intended to leave Paris. The poem tells that he is leaving Paris because of disappointment in love. The arrest of Guy Tabarie would seem to have constituted a more pressing reason and a further violent episode hastened his departure. Villon was involved in another violent brawl, apparently over a girl called Catherine de Vaucelles, who is mentioned several times in his poetry. Villon got very much the worse of this encounter and made a rapid, undignified exit from Paris.
Nothing much is known about his whereabouts in the next years, but it is believed that he was moving around in the Loire valley, associating with a clandestine criminal society called the “coquillards”, whose mysterious jargon he used in several ballads. (A recent scholar, Thierry Martin, interprets some of the difficult jargon which he continued to use for some of his poems as homosexual slang.)
As a result of the revelations of Guy Tabarie in 1458, Villon was sentenced in absentia to banishment from the capital. He did not attempt to return for four years.
Villon and the court of the Duke of Orleans
It is astonishing to discover that during these years of banishment, Villon, a convicted criminal, had contact with and access to the highest nobility in France. Poems that he had sent to Charles, Duke of Orleans won his approval and Villon was given entry into his royal court.
The Duke was an accomplished poet and encouraged others to emulate him by inviting their participation in poetry competitions that he devised. Among the three poems of Villon accepted for Charles’s compendium was one written for the birth of the Duke’s daughter on the 19th December 1457 and it is assumed that Villon attended the Orleans court at Blois from then until the last months of 1457.
He fell out of favour with the Duke and subsequently left the court after his third poem was seen to be an attack on a courtier called Fredet, who was Charles’s favourite. Although the Duke accepted two further ballads from him in 1758, Villon was never again received at court.
Villon’s third recorded misdeed
The next historical record found for Villon refers to the Summer of 1461. It was in this year that Charles VII died and Louis XI ascended the throne. In Villon’s own writings, we find the statement that he had spent the summer months in the prison of the Bishop of Orleans at Meung-sur-Loire. It is assumed that his crime was once again robbing churches.
It was a very fortuitous event that led to his release. The new king was celebrating his accession by making grants of clemency to those in prison. After a visit to Meung, on the 2nd October 1461, by King Louis and Duke Charles of Orleans, Villon was freed from jail.
In an attempt to restore himself in favour, Villon wrote a patriotic ballad to the king and a poem to the Duke of Orleans. As he did not receive any response, Villon decided to end his exile and to go back to Paris.
Back in Paris, he wrote a ballad presenting himself as a reformed character but in a subsequent ballad expressed his disappointment that respectable people were reluctant to accept him.
By the end of 1461, he had probably already sunk back into the murky underworld of Paris. It was then that he started work on his masterpiece: “Le Testament”, in which our poem, “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” is found.
The first line tells us that he is now in his thirtieth year.
His poems are sometimes addressed to rejects of society like himself and sometimes to kings and princes. They tell of the privations of contemporary life and of social injustice. They speak of the brevity of human existence and the failings of love. They tell also of the cruel sufferings of those who fall foul of the law.
These poems like most of his work have great immediacy and sincerity and this stems from Villon’s direct, personal experience.
Villon’s 4th recorded misdeed
On the 2nd November 1462 he was again arrested. This time it was for petty larceny, but it gave the opportunity for the unfinished business of the burglary from the College de Navarre, six years earlier, to be resurrected.
After the hearing, Villon was granted his freedom on his undertaking to repay his share of the loot stolen from the College. This amounted to the large sum of 120 livres that he was committed to find.
Villon’s 5th and final recorded misdeed
At the end of November 1462, Villon was involved in yet another brawl. Significantly perhaps, a man who was attacked and injured was the lawyer who had questioned Guy Tabarie. Although Villon claimed not to have played an active part, his record condemned him and he was tortured and sentenced to hang. While awaiting execution, Villon composed his “Quatrain” and “Ballade des pendus”.
As the day of his hanging drew near, Villon addressed an appeal to the Parlement de Paris. Once again, he was lucky and his capital sentence was commuted to 10 years banishment from Paris.
A free man once again, Villon wrote two satirical ballads about this latest experience.
After this there is no further record of him to be found. At the age of only 34, he left the capital and was never heard from or heard about again.
Notes on the classics of French literature. During my years of teaching, I wrote thousands of pages for my students. Preferring not to discard all these years of work, I am posting them on the Internet as a resource for teachers and students and I am using my blogsite as the portal in order to give access to the individual books.
During my university course, I was an Assistant for one year in Arras and my nostalgia for Georges Brassens stems from these happy days- now long gone- when his songs were first being recorded and he was all the rage among the student surveillants
