In the sentiments and thoughts common to all, then, we will find the impulses of the songs which we shall now discuss. Considering the different shades of our temperament, sadness, contentment, gladness, and exuberance, we find that each gives rise to a species of song, of which the second is naturally the least distinctive, the two extremes calling for the most decisive expression. Now sadness and melancholy have their concrete causes, and it is in the narration of these causes that the heart vents its sorrow. Hence the narrative form, the _complainte_, whose very name would confirm our reasoning, is the earliest form of folk song in the vulgar tongue. In a warlike people this would naturally dwell upon warlike heroic themes, and we have already pointed out the early origin of the epic. The musical form of epic was perhaps the simplest of all, taking for its sole rhythm the accent of the words, one or two short phrases, chanted much in the manner of the plain-song, sufficing for innumerable verses. It is notable, too, that the church, adroitly seizing upon popular music as a power of influence, adopted this form to another genus, the _légende_, which, though developed by clericals, struck as deep a root in the people’s imagination. Thus we see in the ninth century the 'Chant of St. Eulalia,’ and in the tenth the 'Life of St. Leger,’ which already shows great advance in form, being composed in couplets of two, four, and six verses, alternating. Possessed of better means of perpetuation this religious epic flourished better and survived longer than the heroic _complainte_. Still another genus was what we might call the _popular complaintes_, the _chansons narratives_, which dealt with the people’s own characters, with the common causes of woe; the common soldier and the peasant; the death of a husband or a son. Such a one is the _Chanson de Renaud_, which is considered the classic type of popular song. It is sung in every part of France, and its traces are found in Spain, Italy, Sweden, and Norway. It is unquestionably of great age, though its date cannot be fixed. [Illustration: Music] Quand Jean Re-naud de guer-re r’vint, Te-nait ses tri-pes dans ses mains. Sa mère à la fe-nêtre en haut: “Voi-ci ve-nir mon fils Re-naud.” This strain is sung through thirteen stanzas, recounting Renaud’s return from the wars to his home, where mother and wife await him, only to die upon the stroke of midnight. The mother artfully conceals the fact from his young spouse till finally she hears the news from the boys in the street and sees the catafalque in the church. Her grief is expressed in two final stanzas upon this melody: [Illustration: Music] Re-naud, Re-naud, mon ré-con-fort, Te voi-là donc en rang des morts! Di-vin Re-naud mon ré-con-fort, Te voi-là donc en rang des--morts!-- the last stanza very naïvely telling of her own death: