Many of his songs are coarse and even immoral; but his muse was often inspired by patriotic subjects, and in his poems on Napoleon he sings of the exploits of the great general defending French soil from foreign invasion, or he delights in the victories of the Emperor as reflecting glory upon France.  Victor Hugo shared this feeling when he wrote his inspiring verses in praise of the conqueror.  Both poets, Beranger and Hugo, contributed to create the Napoleonic legend which facilitated the election of Louis Napoleon to the presidency in 1848, and brought about the Second Empire.  What is more touching than ’The Reminiscences of the People’?  Are we not inclined to cry out, like the little children listening to the old grandmother who speaks of Napoleon:  “He spoke to you, grandmother!  He sat down there, grandmother!  You have yet his glass, grandmother!” The whole song is poetic, natural, and simple.  Francois Coppee, the great poet, said of it:  “Ah! if I had only written ‘The Reminiscences of the People,’ I should not feel concerned about the judgment of posterity.”

Other works of Beranger’s are on serious subjects, as ’Mary Stuart’s Farewell to France,’ ‘The Holy Alliance,’ ‘The Swallows,’ and ’The Old Banner,’ All his songs have a charm.  His wit is not of the highest order, and he lacks the finesse of La Fontaine, but he is often quaint and always amusing in his songs devoted to love and Lisette, to youth and to wine.  He is not one of the greatest French lyric poets, and cannot be compared with Lamartine, Hugo, Musset, and Vigny; nevertheless he has much originality, and is without doubt the greatest song-writer that France has produced.  He elevated the song and made it both a poem and a drama, full of action and interest.

Beranger wrote slowly and with great care, and many of his songs cost him much labor.  He was filled with compassion for the weak, for the poor and unfortunate; he loved humanity, and above all he dearly loved France.  Posterity will do him justice and will preserve at least a great part of his work.  M. Ernest Legouve in his interesting work, ’La Lecture en Action,’ relates that one day, while walking with Beranger in the Bois de Boulogne, the latter stopped in the middle of an alley, and taking hold of M. Legouve’s hand, said with emotion, “My dear friend, my ambition would be that one hundred of my lines should remain.”  M. Legouve adds, “There will remain more than that,” and his words have been confirmed.  If we read aloud, if we sing them, we too shall share the enthusiasm of our fathers, who were carried away by the pathos, the grandeur, the wit, the inexpressible charm of the unrivaled chansonnier.

[Illustration:  Signature:  ALCEE FORTIER]

FROM ‘THE GIPSIES’

(LES BOHEMIENS)

To see is to have.  Come, hurry anew! 
Life on the wing
Is a rapturous thing. 
To see is to have.  Come, hurry anew! 
For to see the world is to conquer it too.