Je sais bien quelque chose
- Brianna Dai
- Mar 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 2
In an era when ambitious parents forced their daughters to marry for economic strategy rather than for love, wealth often meant old age—and perhaps avarice.
Described by Alan Mills as a Québec ballad “of infinite charm and warmth,” Je sais bien quelque chose is sung from the perspective of a young man who encounters Marguerite, distressed at her unhappy fate of marriage to an old, gray-bearded man.
Marriage Song, Work Song, or Quiet Protest?
This song belongs to the genre of chansons de maumariées — narratives of women trapped in unhappy marriages. In such songs, the young bride often confides in a galant, a young admirer, signalling emotional (and sometimes implied romantic) resistance.
With such circumstances, a young woman who takes her lover as confidant is already far along the path of secret consolation.
Categorized also as a chanson de canotiers ou de métiers, the ballad may have been sung by voyageurs and laborers, its rhythmic refrain suited to communal work. But its content situates it firmly within marriage-song traditions, specifically those critiquing forced unions. The final moral is clear:
Les vieux sont pour les vieill’s, les garçons pour les filles.
Old men for old women. Young men for young women.
It is a line that affirms generational justice and romantic agency.
Sheet music from Vingt-et-Une Chansons Canadiennes (1928).
Lyrics (Original French)
C'est en m'y promenant le longue de ces prairies,
Dans mon chemin rencontr’, Marguerite m'amie.
Je sais bien quelque chose que je ne veux pas dire,
Ah ! – Que je ne dirai pas.
“Qu'a-vous à soupirer, Marguerite m'amie ?”
“Ne sais-tu pas, galant, Que mon pèr’ m'y marie ?”
Je sais bien quelque chose que je ne veux pas dire,
Ah ! – Que je ne dirai pas.
“Ne sais-tu pas, galant, Que mon pèr’ m'y marie ?
A un vieillard bonhomm’ qui a la barbe grise ?”
Je sais bien quelque chose que je ne veux pas dire,
Ah ! – Que je ne dirai pas.
Je voudrais que ces vieux soient dedans un navire.
A cinq cents lieues au larg', sans pain et sans farine !
Je sais bien quelque chose que je ne veux pas dire,
Ah ! – Que je ne dirai pas.
Pour leur montrer par là, les pucelles à poursuivre.
Les vieux sont pour les vieill’s, les garçons pour les filles !
Je sais bien quelque chose que je ne veux pas dire,
Ah ! – Que je ne dirai pas.
Source: MacMillan, Ernest, et al. Vingt-et-Une Chansons Canadiennes = Twenty-One Folk-Songs of French Canada. Translated by John Murray Gibbon, Frederick Harris Music, 1928.
Lyrics (English translation)
There as I saunter on, Over the meadows airy,
Yonder my path encounters, Marguerite my own dearie.
Something there is I know, yet ever to tell am chary,
Ah! No, I shall never tell.
Why do you then so sigh, Marguerite, my own dearie?
“Do you not know, young man, Father would have me marry?”
Something there is I know, yet ever to tell am chary,
Ah! No, I shall never tell.
Do you not know, young man, Father would have me marry
Soon to a simple dotard, Soon to a greybeard wheezy?
Something there is I know, yet ever to tell am chary,
Ah! No, I shall never tell.
I would put these old men out on a vessel dreary.
Five hundred leagues a- sailing, Breadless and flour not any:
Something there is I know, yet ever to tell am chary,
Ah! No, I shall never tell.
So that they learn thereby Virgins alone to leave,
or Old men should have old women, Girls only young men really:
Something there is I know, Yet ever to tell am chary,
Ah! No, I shall never tell!
Source: MacMillan, Ernest, et al. Vingt-et-Une Chansons Canadiennes = Twenty-One Folk-Songs of French Canada. Translated by John Murray Gibbon, Frederick Harris Music, 1928.
A Possible Historical Backstory: Marguerite de la Rocque
“As I walked out, I met my love Marguerite, weeping.
I know of what I would not say; that I will not say.” the lyrics lament.
So who is Marguerite?
One story sometimes associated with this ballad is that of Marguerite de la Rocque, marooned on the Québec North Shore in the 1540s by Sieur (Captain) Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval after refusing a marriage for riches and pursuing love instead. Stranded on what became known as the “Isle of Demons,” Marguerite survived alone for two winters after her lover and child perished, before being rescued by Basque fishermen.
In this piece of history, it was Marguerite and her lover (one of de Roberval’s men) who went “without bread or flour,” while the old powerful men sailed safely back across the Atlantic. Newfoundland fisherfolk continue to recount her legend and guide visitors to “Marguerite’s Cave,” near Harrington Island, preserving the memory of her survival.
Whether or not the song directly references her, the thematic resonance is striking: exile, resistance, and the cost of defying patriarchal authority.
Sources
MacMillan, Ernest, et al. Vingt-et-Une Chansons Canadiennes = Twenty-One Folk-Songs of French Canada. Translated by John Murray Gibbon, Frederick Harris Music, 1928.
Mills, Alan. French Canadian Folk Songs. FOLKWAYS RECORDS & SERVICE CORP., 1952, N. Y. C., USA.
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