"_It was a prince's daughter_--" "_And she would married be_" replied the hemp-beater. "Go on, go on to another! we know that a little too well." THE GRAVE-DIGGER. What do you say to this: "_When from Nantes I was returning_--" THE HEMP-BEATER. "_I was weary, do you know! oh! so weary_." That's a song of my grandmother's day. Give us another one. THE GRAVE-DIGGER. "_The other day as I was walking_--" THE HEMP-BEATER. "_Along by yonder charming wood_!" That's a silly one! Our grandchildren wouldn't take the trouble to answer you! What! are those all you know? THE GRAVE-DIGGER. Oh! we'll sing you so many of them, that you will end by stopping short. Fully an hour was passed in this contest. As the two combatants were the most learned men in the province in the matter of ballads, and as their repertory seemed inexhaustible, it might well have lasted all night, especially as the hemp-beater seemed to take malicious pleasure in allowing his opponent to sing certain laments in ten, twenty, or thirty stanzas, pretending by his silence to admit that he was defeated. Thereupon, there was triumph in the bridegroom's camp, they sang in chorus at the tops of their voices, and every one believed that the adverse party would make default; but when the final stanza was half finished, the old hemp-beater's harsh, hoarse voice would bellow out the last words; whereupon he would shout: "You don't need to tire yourselves out by singing such long ones, my children! We have them at our fingers' ends!" Once or twice, however, the hemp-beater made a wry face, drew his eyebrows together, and turned with a disappointed air toward the observant matrons. The grave-digger was singing something so old that his adversary had forgotten it, or perhaps had never known it; but the good dames instantly sang the victorious refrain through their noses, in tones as shrill as those of the sea-gull; and the grave-digger, summoned to surrender, passed to something else. It would have been too long to wait until one side or the other won the victory. The bride's party announced that they would show mercy on condition that the others should offer her a gift worthy of her. Thereupon, the song of the _livrées_ began, to an air as solemn as a church chant. The men outside sang in unison: "Ouvrez la porte, ouvrez, Marie, ma mignonne, _J'ons_ de beaux cadeaux à vous présenter. Hélas! ma mie, laissez-nous entrer."[3] To which the women replied from the interior, in falsetto, in doleful tones: "Mon père est en chagrin, ma mère en grand' tristesse, Et moi je suis fille de trop grand' merci Pour ouvrir ma porte à _cette heure ici_."[4] The men repeated the first stanza down to the fourth line, which they modified thus: "J'ons un beau mouchoir à vous présenter."[5] But the women replied, in the name of the bride, in the same words as before.