It will run through the beginning of the Capetian dynasty to nowadays and will focus on everything related to France and its history.
Feel free to submit!
Jésus Revient - La vie est un long fleuve tranquille
Life Is a Long Quiet River (French: La vie est un long fleuve tranquille) is a French comedy by Étienne Chatiliez of 1988.
In a maternity clinic two children from families with completely different social backgrounds are switched at birth. One goes on to live in an upper middle-class family while the other to a poor family. Twelve years later, the mistake is discovered and the child living with the poor family is taken back by his parents, but keeps in touch with his former family and makes them encounter his new brothers and sisters. A series of satirical and comedic scenes follow.
Due in part to the film’s being shown on French television rather often, it has gained a sort of cult following among young French people. The song ‘Jésus Reviens’ sung at church in the film is instantly recognisable to many French youth as a key example of the film’s many satirical digs at the French Catholic bourgeois culture in the era it was filmed.
A website is indexing songs from the French Revolution. Here it is
La Gueuse - Yvonneck
Les Camelots du roi used to be the action force of the far right league l’Action Française and created an important repertoire of songs, such as La Gueuse (their nickname for the 3rd Republic)
The song curses the upholders of democracy such as Jews (“youpins” being a pejorative term), free-massons, foreigners. The deputies Jaurès or Briand… are promised the same end as the Republic. After killing the hated Republic, the Camelots are invited to restore the monarchy.
Miss Maggie - Renaud
Miss Maggie made Renaud a controversial character in the United Kingdom because the song praises women for their non violence and honesty with the exception of PM Margaret Thatcher (a version of the song with the lyrics adapted in English was also recorded). The last verses read (translated from French): “In the final hour, […] if I can stay on earth, I would like to become a dog and have Margaret Thatcher as a lamp post tourinate against, daily.”
Le 31 du mois d’Aout.
Song remembering the capture of the “Kent” by Surcouf around 1800
La crise est finie ( a song about the end of the economic crisis) - Albert Préjean - 1934
Clément Janequin (c. 1485 – 1558) was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most famous composers of popular chansons of the entire Renaissance, and along with Claudin de Sermisy, was hugely influential in the development of the Parisian chanson, especially theprogrammatic type. The wide spread of his fame was made possible by the concurrent development of music printing.
The programmatic chansons for which Janequin is famous were long, sectional pieces, and usually cleverly imitated natural or man-made sounds. Le chant des oiseaux imitates bird-calls; La chasse the sounds of a hunt; and La bataille (Escoutez tous gentilz), probably the most famous, and almost certainly written to celebrate the French victory over the Swiss Confederates at theBattle of Marignano in 1515, imitates battle noises, including trumpet calls, cannon fire and the cries of the wounded Onomatopoeic effects such as these became a commonplace in later 16th century music, and carried over into the Baroque era; indeed “battle music” was to become a cliché, but it first came into prominence with Janequin.
Early 17th c. Missal (French); Advent, the Nativity,, the Conception, and the signature of the original owner - from my own collection.
La légende de Saint Nicolas
St. Nicolas comes primarily in Alsace,Nord-Pas-de-Calais (French Flanders), and in Lorraine, where he is patron. A little donkey carries baskets filled with children’s gifts, biscuits and sweets. The whole family gets ready for the saint’s arrival on 6 December, with grandparents telling stories of the saint. The most popular one (also the subject of a popular French children’s song) is of three children who wandered away and got lost. Cold and hungry, a wicked butcher lured them into his shop where he killed them and salted them away in a large tub. Through St. Nicolas’ help the boys were revived and returned to their families, earning him a reputation as protector of children. The evil butcher followed St. Nicolas in penance ever since Père Fouettard. In France, statues and paintings often portray this event, showing the saint with children in a barrel.
Bakeries and home kitchens are a hive of activity as spiced gingerbread biscuits and mannala (a brioche shaped like the saint) are baked. In schools, children learn songs and poems and create arts and crafts about St. Nicolas, while in nursery schools, a man portraying St. Nicolas gives away chocolates and sometimes little presents. He is sometimes accompanied by an actor playing Père Fouettard who carries switches to threaten the children who fear he will advise St. Nicolas to pass them by on his gift-giving rounds.
Un lépreux agitant sa crécelle / A leper holding a ratchet
Barthélémy l’Anglais, Livre des propriétés de choses, France, fin du XVe siècleParis, BnF, département des Manuscrits, Français 9140, fol.15v.
A ratchet, also called a noisemaker is an orchestral musical instrument played by percussionists. Operating on the principle of the ratchet device, a gearwheel and a stiff board is mounted on a handle, which rotates freely.
The player holds the handle and swins the whole mechanism around. The momentum makes the board click against the gearwheel, producing a clicking and rattling noise. A popular design consists of a thick wooden cog wheel attached to a handle and two wooden flanges that alternately hit the teeth of the cog when the handle turns. Alternatively, smaller ratchets are sometimes held still or mounted and the handle turned rapidly by the player.
