ALIBORON WATCH!

For a long time now, a local refrain has been sung in the Francs-Picard region which, without aiming at high poetry, has its meaning and its character:

Picard race,
May God keep you
Healthy and gallant...

The tune and the words have allure. In Abbeville, a director of a secular school, in the Saint-Sépulcre district, would have liked to teach the song to his students, but an obstacle stopped him: it was the name of the Master and Father of all men, whom the stupefaction of the secular school affects not to know.
His decision was soon made. Since God is expelled from the school, all that remained was to expel him from the song. And so, this free thinker (oh how much!) kept the refrain by making this slight transformation, which amused the newspaper La Somme:

Race picarde,
May we keep you
Healthy and gaillarde...

But many children know the real text. They sing at the top of their voices, in the street, as they leave school: Race picarde, may God keep you. And the headmaster's soul is all poisoned by it.

What a sad ambition for a school headmaster to want to resemble the imbecile who had thus expurgated La Fontaine:

Little fish will become big,
Provided that we lend him a life