The people wanted a man to speak to them the language they love and understand, and to create imitators to vary and multiply versions of the same text. I have been that man.

Béranger was quite willing to make any moral descent that might seem to him necessary in order to reach his audience. He may have been instinctively, but he was also deliberately, low and lewd in some of his songs.

Without their help [said he, that is without the help of such immoral songs] I am disposed to think that the others would not have been able to go so far, or so low, or even so high; no offense in this last word to the virtues of good society.

Even the best of Béranger’s songs lack any thing like lift and aspiration. They are conceived in a comparatively low tone. The noblest leaven in them is love of France and of liberty. Béranger hated the Bourbons; they persecuted him, but that only helped him sing them off the throne of France. Béranger’s songs did more than any other one individual influence, perhaps they did more than all other individual influences combined, first to overturn the restored Bourbon dynasty after Waterloo, and, second, to bring about the elevation of Louis Napoleon to power.

For Béranger was a passionate admirer of the great Napoleon. True, he deprecated the exhaustions visited on France by the wars of glory which Napoleon waged. But that famous piece of his, “The King of Yvetot,” in which this deprecation found voice, was a protest so lightly conceived and at bottom so genial, that the jealousy of Napoleon himself could afford to laugh at it. The pieces in which, on the contrary, he celebrated the praises of the emperor were written with an emotion contagiously vivid. Let us now have before us “The King of Yvetot,” with an appropriate contrast to it afterward supplied in one of these encomiastic pieces.

“Yvetot” is the name of an ancient French town, situated in a seignory the lord of which once enjoyed the nominal rank of king. The effect of Béranger’s title to his song is of course humorous. The song-writer’s purpose was to draw, in the king whom he describes, a whimsical contrast to the restless Napoleon. Thackeray furnishes us with a happily sympathetic rendering of Béranger’s “King of Yvetot,” as follows; for brevity’s sake we omit one stanza:

There was a king of Yvetot, Of whom renown hath little said, Who let all thoughts of glory go, And dawdled half his days a-bed; And every night, as night came round, By Jenny with a night-cap crowned, Slept very sound. Sing, ho, ho, ho! and he, he, he! That’s the kind of king for me. And every day it came to pass That four lusty meals made he, And step by step, upon an ass, Rode abroad his realms to see; And wherever he did stir, What think you was his escort, sir? Why, an old cur. Sing, ho, ho, ho! and he, he, he! That’s the kind of king for me. If e’er he went into excess, ’Twas from a somewhat lively thirst, But he who would his subjects bless, Odd’s fish!—must wet his whistle first, And so from every cask they got, Our king did to himself allot At least a pot. Sing, ho, ho, ho! and he, he, he! That’s the kind of king for me. To all the ladies of the land A courteous king, and kind, was he; The reason why you’ll understand, They named him Pater Patriæ. Each year he called his fighting-men, And marched a league from home, and then, Marched back again. Sing, ho, ho, ho! and he, he, he! That’s the kind of king for me. ***** The portrait of this best of kings Is extant still, upon a sign That on a village tavern swings, Famed in the country for good wine. The people in their Sunday trim, Filling their glasses to the brim, Look up to him. Singing, ha, ha, ha! and he, he, he! That’s the sort of king for me.

In his autobiography, an interesting book, Béranger says that hardly any other writer equally with himself could have dispensed with the help of the printer. His songs traveled of themselves from mouth to mouth without the intervention of printed copies. In fact, Béranger was already famous before his works went into print. It was this oral currency of his songs that made them such engines of power. That brilliant Bohemian wit among Frenchmen, Chamfort, defined, it is said, before Béranger’s time, the government of France to be absolute monarchy tempered by songs. This celebrated saying does not overstate the degree, though it may misstate the kind, of influence that Béranger exercised with his lyre. He was, by conviction and in sympathy, a determined and ardent republican, and yet, in fact, he founded, or played the chief part in founding, the imperial usurpation of Louis Napoleon. This he did by getting the glories of the great emperor sung by Frenchmen throughout France, until the very name of Napoleon became an irresistible spell to conjure by. We now give the most celebrated of these Bonaparte songs. Mr. William Young, an American, has a volume of translations from Béranger. Of this particular song, Mr. Young’s version is so felicitous that we unhesitatingly choose it for our readers. The title of the song is, “The Recollections of the People.” It was, we believe, founded on an incident of Béranger’s own observation; we shorten again by a stanza:

Aye, many a day the straw-thatched cot Shall echo with his glory! The humblest shed, these fifty years, Shall know no other story. There shall the idle villagers To some old dame resort, And beg her with those good old tales To make their evenings short. “What though they say he did us harm Our love this cannot dim; Come, Granny, talk of him to us; Come, Granny, talk of him.” “Well, children—with a train of kings Once he passed by this spot; ’Twas long ago; I had but just Begun to boil the pot. On foot he climbed the hill, whereon I watched him on his way; He wore a small three-cornered hat; His overcoat was gray. I was half frightened till he spoke; ‘My dear,’ says he, ‘how do?’” “O, Granny, Granny, did he speak? What, Granny! speak to you?” ***** “But when at length our poor Champagne By foes was overrun, He seemed alone to hold his ground; Nor dangers would he shun. One night—as might be now—I heard A knock—the door unbarred— And saw—good God! ’twas he, himself, With but a scanty guard. ‘O what a war is this!’ he cried, Taking this very chair.” “What! Granny, Granny, there he sat? What! Granny, he sat there?” “’I’m hungry,’ said he: quick I served Thin wine and hard brown bread; He dried his clothes, and by the fire In sleep drooped down his head. Waking, he saw my tears—’Cheer up, Good dame!’ says he, ‘I go ‘Neath Paris’ walls to strike for France One last avenging blow.’ He went; but on the cup he used Such value did I set— It has been treasured.” “What! till now? You have it, Granny, yet?” “Here ’tis; but ’twas the hero’s fate To ruin to be led; He, whom a pope had crowned, alas! In a lone isle lies dead. ’Twas long denied: ‘No, no,’ said they, ‘Soon shall he re-appear; O’er ocean comes he, and the foe Shall find his master here.’ Ah, what a bitter pang I felt, When forced to own ’twas true!” “Poor Granny! Heaven for this will look, Will kindly look on you.”