This leads to the mention of what is of no small interest in the history of the origin of part-singing. Anyone familiar with vespers, as performed in French churches, is aware that psalms and canticles are sung in one or other fashion: either alternate verses alone are chanted, and the gap is filled in by the organ going through astounding musical frolics; or else one verse is chanted in plain-song, and the next in _fauxbourdon_—that is to say, the tenor holds on to the plain-song, whilst treble and alto gambol at a higher strain a melody different, but harmonious with the plain-song. In Provence at high mass the Gloria and Credo are divided into paragraphs, and in like manner are sung alternately in plain-song and _fauxbourdon_. The origin of this part-singing is very curious. The congregation, loving to hear their own voices, and not particularly interested in, or knowing the Latin words, broke out into folk-song at intervals, in the same “mode” as that of the tone sung by the clergy. They chirped out some love ballad or dance tune, whilst the officiants in the choir droned the Latin of the liturgy. Even so late as 1645, the Provençals at Christmas were wont to sing in the _Magnificat_ a vulgar song— “Que ne vous requinquez-vous, Vielle, Que ne vous requinquez, donc?” which may be rendered— “Why do you trick yourself out, old woman? O why do you trick yourself so?” In order to stop this sort of thing the clergy had recourse to “farcing” the canticles, _i.e._ translating each verse into the vernacular, and interlarding the Latin with the translation, in hopes that the people, if sing they would, would adopt these words; but the farced canticles were not to the popular taste, and they continued to roar out lustily their folk-songs, often indelicate, always unsuitable. This came to such a pass that either the organ was introduced to bellow the people down, or else the system was accepted and regulated; and to this is due the _fauxbourdon_. But in Italy and in the South of France it passed for a while beyond regulation. The musicians accepted it, and actually composed masses, in which the tenor alone sang the sacred words and the other parts performed folk-songs. As Mr. Addington Symonds says:—