1. Savez-vous planter les choux
à, la mode, à la mode,
Savez-vous planter les choux
à, la mode, de chez nous.
2. On les plantent avec les doigts
à, la mode, à la mode,
On les plantent avec les doigts
à, la mode, de chez nous.
3. On les plantent avec le pied
à, la mode, à la mode,
On les plantent avec le pied
à, la mode, de chez nous.
But the prettiest of these singing games was "La Marguerite." To play this a circle was formed around La Marguerite, who was supposed to be a beautiful princess waiting to be rescued from her imprisonment. Two knights seeking her walked round the ring singing:
1. Où est la Marguerite?
Oh qué,
Oh qué,
Oh qué,
Où est la Marguerite,
Oh qué son chevalier.
2. Elle est dans son château,
Oh qué,
Oh qué,
Oh qué,
Elle est dans son château,
Oh qué son chevalier.
And then, one by one, stones were loosened from the tower; that is, the ring was made smaller and smaller until La Marguerite was set at liberty.
The skipping-rope and the hoop are, or were then, much more used there then here; and to skip the rope gracefully, or guide a hoop dexterously, was an accomplishment.
Whoever was agile enough to pass the rope under the feet twice while giving one skip was looked upon with admiration. New developments constantly took place with the skipping-rope or "corde à sauter," and all sorts of evolutions were gone through with, many of which were pretty and graceful.
Lively games were usually played in some wide open space near the Porte Maillot, one of the entrances to the Bois, as there was always sure to be a great number of both grown people and children thereabout. But there were retired nooks where our little band sometimes gathered and made merry. One favorite retreat was a pine grove; "Les Sapins" we called it.
Here the little girls liked best to play dolls, or make a dinette with their goûter of a tablet of chocolate and some bread which forms the regulation lunch of most French children. Sometimes we amused ourselves in gathering the resinous matter which oozed from the pines, sticking to the bark, and from it we made little plasters and doll medicines.
"La Mousse" was the name of another haunt; this was a mossy bank which on one side sloped gently down to one of the main avenues and on the other descended abruptly into a ravine called La Fosse. It was a great place for the boys and such a turning of somersets and racings down the steep sides of the Fosse as there were!