The true meaning of nursery rhymes. Maybe after this, you'll think twice before humming...

Une souris verte, qui courait dans l'herbe“ (”A green mouse, running through the grass")... Children love to have ditties hummed in their ears... But if you listen carefully, even behind the most tender of nursery rhymes there are hidden words that are a little out of the realm of early childhood! Would you like to discover the true meaning of the 5 most emblematic nursery rhymes of our childhood? Here's how...

A Green Mouse

"Une souris verte" is a 300-year-old children's song with wartime origins. The lyrics refer to a soldier captured during the Vendée War in the French Revolution. The green mouse symbolizes this officer, "running through the grass" before being caught by a Republican soldier. The soldier then "shows him to the gentlemen"—his superiors—leading to the torture of the prisoner, who suffers so much that he metaphorically transforms into a "warm snail."

Good King Dagobert

This song, dating back to 1750, references 7th-century Merovingian King Dagobert I and his advisor, Saint Éloi. Did Dagobert really wear his underwear backward? Historians say no. The lyrics actually mock the monarchy of the Ancien Régime, particularly King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. To avoid censorship and imprisonment, the king’s name was replaced with Dagobert.

There Was a Shepherdess

The song "Il était une bergère," dating from 1860, tells the story of a shepherdess who angrily kills her kitten. But does she really kill a kitten? In Old French, the phrase "letting the cat go to the cheese" was a metaphor for losing one's virginity before marriage.

By the Light of the Moon

A boy, unable to write at night, asks Pierrot for light, but Pierrot, already in bed, tells him to ask the neighbor. This famous 18th-century song actually hides risqué meanings. The "plume" (a play on "lume," meaning light) and "candle" are phallic symbols, while "fire" ("je n’ai plus de feu") represents lost sexual passion. Other expressions of the time—like "on bat le briquet" (meaning to have sex) and "lubin" (a reference to a corrupt monk)—hint that this is far from an innocent moonlit stroll.

We Won’t Go to the Woods Anymore

This song, written in 1753 by Madame de Pompadour for village children after Louis XV gifted her the Hôtel d'Évreux, actually refers to the crackdown on brothels during Louis XIV’s reign. Under the influence of Madame de Maintenon and in response to a venereal disease epidemic, the king signed an ordinance in 1684 strengthening police powers against prostitution. The famous line "Jump, dance, kiss whoever you like"—or maybe not—hints at a lost era of forbidden pleasures.