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They were easy to learn, simple to sing, but sprightly and melodious. Some of them have remained on the lips and in the hearts of the French-Canadian race for over two hundred years. Those who do not know the Claire fontaine and Ma boulë roulant have never known French Canada.
Here you can still listen to those quaint ballads which were sung centuries ago in Normandie and Provence. "A la Claire Fontaine," "Dans Paris y a-t-une Brune plus Belle que le Jour," "Sur le Pont d'Avignon," "En Roulant ma Boule," "La Poulette Grise," and a hundred other folk-songs linger among the peasants and voyageurs of these northern woods. You may hear
In Argot the train is le roulant Vif, the Rattler. The name given to the head while still on the shoulders la Sorbonne shows the antiquity of this dialect which is mentioned by very early romance-writers, as Cervantes, the Italian story-tellers, and Aretino.
The men quickened their stroke and shot diagonally across the current of an eddy. "Ni-shi-shin," said Me-en-gan. They fell back to the old stroke, rolling out their full-throated measure. "Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent, En roulant ma boule, Trois dames s'en vont les ramassant, Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." The canoe was now in the smooth rush of the first stretch of swifter water.
Not less gay are they for this deprivation. They are endless talkers, good story tellers, and fond of song and dance. They have preserved some of the popular songs of France, Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre, En roulant ma Boule roulant, A la Claire Fontaine, and others and these airs simple, pleasing, a little sad, have become characteristic of French Canada.
Impulsively she raised her face to his, her eyes shining. "To me all this is very fine," said she. He smiled a little sadly. "At least you know why I came." "Yes," she repeated, "I know why you came. But you are in trouble." "The chances of war." "And they have defeated you after all." "I shall start on la Longue Traverse singing 'Rouli roulant. It's a small defeat, that."
The sharp click of the iron hoofs on the road; the strong rush of the river; the sweet smell of the maple and the pungent balsam; the dank rich odour of the cedar swamp; the cry of the loon from the water; the flaming crane in the fishing-boat; the fisherman, spear in hand, staring into the dark waters tinged with sombre red; the voice of a lonely settler keeping time to the ping of the axe as, lengthening out his day to nightly weariness, he felled a tree; river-drivers' camps spotted along the shore; huge cribs or rafts which had swung down the great stream for scores of miles, the immense oars motionless, the little houses on the timbers blinking with light; and from cheerful raftsmen coming the old familiar song of the rivers: "En roulant, ma boule roulant, En roulant ma boule!"
With every lift of the paddle, with every deep breath of the fragrant spring air, with every slip of the canoe, the buoyant gladness of those old canoeing days came swelling into his heart, and ere he knew he caught himself singing, to the rhythmic swing of paddle and shoulders, the old Habitant canoe song: "En roulant ma boule roulant."
"Only I'll rather go downheel as upheel, me always I'll rather ron the rapeed than track the boat up the rapeed on the bank. Well, en roulant, eh, M'sieu Alex?" "Roulant!" answered Alex, briefly. Moise, setting his paddle into the water with a great sweep, began once more the old canoe song. "Le fils du roi s'en va chassant En roulant, ma boule! Avec son grand fusil d'argent En roulant, ma boule!"
The steersman swung the prow around and on they went up the Wolverine without a pause in the sweep of the paddles or the swing of the song: "Rouli roulant, ma boulé, roulant, En roulant, ma boulé, roulant, En roulant, ma bo-u-lé." "French half-breeds," guessed Kendrick when the singing modulated in distance, "and they're heading for the lumber camp. What do you make out of that?"