Ex. 14-6: Ronde des pauvres

"Ronde des pauvres" (Dance of the Poor) is a song by the French composer Pauline Duchambge (1776–1858). She wrote hundreds of romances — simple, tuneful salon songs — and was one of the most popular romance composers in Paris in the early 1800s. She had studied with the composers Luigi Cherubini and Jan Ladislav Dussek.

The song is in A major, with seven verses. In the middle it turns to A minor for a while, then returns to A major and ends there. The words are by Count Alexandre de Laborde (1773–1842), a French politician and archaeologist who had served under Napoleon. It was published in Paris around 1830.

Duchambge's closest friend was the poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, one of the first French Romantic women poets. They met in 1815 and stayed close for the rest of their lives. Duchambge set more than thirty of Valmore's poems to music.

Her own salon drew writers and artists, among them Alfred de Vigny, a leading poet of the French Romantic movement. She cared a great deal about melody: in an 1835 letter she turned down some verses sent to her, writing that they were lovely but not musical enough to make into a song.