The poem offers a playful critique of traditional romantic songs, ridiculing their themes of love and virtue as outdated and unrealistic. The speaker encourages fellow songwriters to abandon sentimental topics in favour of scandalous or bawdy stories, while still maintaining a sense of decorum. He dismisses refined madrigals as bland, preferring the raw humour of simple, unpolished songs.

A version of the madrigal is featured in D4757, an autograph letter from Charles Marie de La Condamine to Voltaire, written from Paris and dated 5 January 1752.

The collection includes:
1) Satires, epigrams, sonnets, and other pieces in verse composed by an admirer of Voltaire.
2) Copy of Phillippiques against the Duke of Orleans by Lagrange-Chancel
3) Pieces from the beginning of the 17th century. I) Letter from Marie de Médicis on the trial of the Maréchal de Marillac. II) Some pieces against Mazarin such as “Le Hardy frondeur à Mr le Duc de Beaufort”, and “Sur la retraite des Mazarinettes au Val de Grâce”, or “Verses against Mr le Prince de Condé”.
4) Several pieces in a very free vein, such as “sonnet” and a “madrigal”
5) Several pieces on the Régiment de la Calotte, a facetious and satirical company created in 1702
6) Satires on the Court of Louis XIV and attacks on noble characters of the time of the Fronde. I) “le Roy à mesdames de la Vallière et de Montespan”. II) “Les chambres de la Cour et de la Ville”. III) “Logemens des Dames avec leurs proverbes”
7) “Idée de la personne, de la cour de la manière de vivre du roy de Prusse, 1753”