Malbrouck

DESCRIPTION: French language: "Malbrouck s'en va-t-en dguere-re/Marlborough he's gone to war." Marlborough is slow in returning home; he is dead and in his tomb. Details of his funeral are given
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1896 (Trebucq)
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage nobility death burial funeral | French Marlborough
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1650-1722 - Life of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
1701-1714 - War of the Spanish Succession, pitting France and Spain against Britain, Austria, and many smaller nations. Marlborough made a reputation by winning the battles of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), and Oudenarde (1708) (he fought a draw at Malplaquet in 1709)
FOUND IN: France
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland 108, "Malbrouck" (1 text, 1 tune)
Chase-AmericanFolkTalesAndSongs, pp. 202-205, "Molly Brooks" (1 tune plus dance figures)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, pp. 231-233, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow -- (Malbrouk -- We Won't Go Home till Morning! -- The Bear Went over the Mountain)
cf. List-SingingAboutIt-FolkSongsInSouthernIndiana, pp. 146-151, "We'll All Go Down to Rowsers" (1 text, 1 tune, plus sheet music reprints of "Malbrouck" and "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow")
ADDITIONAL: Gilles Booker, "'Malbrouk, s'en va-t-en guerre' or, How History Reaches the Nursery," essay inGillian Avery and Julia Briggs, editors, _Children and Their Books: A Celebration of the Work of Iona and Peter Opie_, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 140-143, "(Malbrouk, s'en va-t-en guerre)" (1 French tex)
George Borrow, _Romano Lavo-Lil: Word-Book of the Romany or English Gypsy Language_, 1874 (references are to the 2011? Lost Library reprint), pp. 164-169, "Malbrun," "Malbrouk" (1 text plus a a translation from a Spanish Gypsy text, presumably this although not clearly identified)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "We Won't Go Home Until Morning" (tune) and references there
cf. "The Duke of Marlborough" (subject: The Duke of Marlborough)
NOTES [303 words]: For the history of this tune, see the entry on "We Won't Go Home Until Morning."
Booker, p. 143, says that the basic text "is short on historical facts and establishes only that (a) Marlborough died while on campaign away from home and (b) that he was buried with ceremony. The first of these is notably untrue and the second, while true, would probably have been so of any person of his rank and importance."
Thus, although this song is probably "about" the Duke of Marlborough, this song has nothing to do with the historical Marlborough, although Edwards, p. 155 note, says that it was based on a false report that Marlborough was killed in the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709. She adds that it supposedly was brought to Ireland by Thomas MacDonagh, one of the Irish revolutionaries on 1916.
It is very curious that a tune about Marlborough, the enemy of France, became popular in France!
According to Entwistle, p. 53, "A simple instance of migration [of a tune from country to country] is Marlbrough s'en va en guerre. The tune may come from a seventeenth-century hunting song, but it suddenly sprang into popularity in 1781 through being taken up by the Dauphin's nurse and taken up by Marie Antoinette. It spread abroad so rapidly that Goethe heard it almost everywhere on the road to Naples." Entwistle goes on to mention French and German versions that differ by just one note, plus a Catalan version with more extensive changes.
That story of Marie Antoinette getting the tune from her wet nurse is also told by Booker, p.145, so it was widespread, but Booker calls it a "tradition" rather than history.
Chase-AmericanFolkTalesAndSongs describes "Molly Brooks" as an American "wearing-down" of Marlborough. Hence the classification of his dance piece here rather than under one of the other Malbrouck tunes. - RBW
Bibliography

Booker: Gilles Booker, "'Malbrouk, s'en va-t-en guerre' or, How History Reaches the Nursery," essay inGillian Avery and Julia Briggs, editors, Children and Their Books: A Celebration of the Work of Iona and Peter Opie, Oxford University Press, 1989
Edwards: Ruth Dudley Edwards, An Atlas of Irish History, second edition, 1981 (I use the 1991 Routledge edition)
Entwistle: William J. Entwistle, European Balladry, Oxford University Press, 1939; corrected second impression with a new prefatory note 1951

Last updated in version 6.4
File: K108

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