The musical attainments of “La Belle France” were full of interest during the same period. At the beginning of the fifteenth century the figure of the good King Réné of Anjou faces his kingdom, viol in hand and whistling the refrain of his latest composition. A kingly creature with noble gifts of mind and person which opened to the first inspiration of the Italian Renaissance and mingled its vigour with the culture of Provence. The influence of this minstrel Prince in the domains of Art was powerful at the time, yet it was soon obliterated by the coarse tastes of his conqueror, Louis XI. An instance of this monarch’s musical vagaries is instanced by his command that a concert of pigs should be provided for him. The master of the Royal Music, M. l’Abbé de Baigne, complied with the demand of his royal master by inventing an ingenious arrangement which was a mixture of pork and piano. He procured swine of various ages and sizes, placed them in a tent and erected a keyboard, the notes of which were each furnished with a spike which was to each pig like the business end of the nail to the man who inadvertently came into contact with it. When the good Abbé attacked the notes vigorously, each pig became acquainted with his own particular spike and burst forth into long and pronounced squeaks. Heretofore we have always looked upon those numerous nursery rhymes in which animals figure as instrumentalists as due to the inventive caprice of the writer. Confronted with Louis XI.’s practical application of such idiosyncrasies, the following couplet is but a representation of real life after all:-- “Come dance a jig To my granny’s pig With a rowdy, rowdy, dowdy; Come dance a jig To my Granny’s pig And pussy cat shall crowdy.”[18] We assume that the pig and the cat formed the instrumental part of the performance, while the guests footed it lightly. An instance of feline dexterity is afforded us in the following:-- “A cat came fiddling out of a barn With a pair of bag-pipes under her arm; She could sing nothing but fiddle cum fee, The mouse has married the bumble-bee; Pipe cat--dance mouse We’ll have a wedding at our good house.”[19]