These choruses were, of course, the author's exclusive property. He placed them in identical situations: some of them had already done duty ten, twenty, thirty times, and only waited the opportunity to be used a thirty-first time. We will begin with a chorus from the Barbier châtelain, by Théaulon: to every man his due.
"Bonne nuit!
Bonne nuit!
Ça soulage,
En voyage.
Bonne nuit!
Bonne nuit!
Retirons-nous sans bruit."
This became proverbial: directly the scene began, everyone commenced to hum in advance the chorus which came at the end of it. Another chorus, of Brazier and Courcy, in the Parisien à Londres, was also not devoid of merit. Unluckily, the scene it belonged to was so peculiar that it was only used once. Nevertheless, it remained in the memories of a fair number of connoisseurs. It was about a Frenchman who was surprised during a criminal amour and who, when led before his judges, excited a lively curiosity among the audience.
So the audience sang:—
"Nous allons voir juger
Cet étranger,
Qui fut bien léger!...
A l'audience,
On défend l'innocence,
Et l'on sait la venger."
The stranger was condemned to marriage, and the audience, satisfied, left, singing the same chorus, with this slight variation:—
"Nous avons vu juger
Cet étranger,
Qui fut bien léger!...
A l'audience,
On défend l'innocence,
Et l'on sait la venger."
But as breakfasts, dinners and suppers are more frequent at theatres than foreigners condemned to espouse Englishwomen, there was a chorus of Dumanoir which, always sung when people were sitting down to the table, gave the public some notion of the drunkenness of the partakers.
They sang this:—