Not desiring, however, to turn the tables upon our aspersers, we propose to still further pursue the fortunes of the Britannic shibboleth from when we left it upon the lips of La Pucelle. The aspersion cast upon the English on the Picard battle-fields continued to be handed down in camp story and in rugged _vaux-de-vire_. Neither did it cease to provoke derision and merriment when it had entered into the common parlance of the Paris cabaret, and became the stock property of the Palais Royal farce.[12] The "Goddam" that greeted British officers rollicking through the city of pleasure in the days succeeding Waterloo was the same term of opprobrium that assailed the English archers at Agincourt and Honfleur.
To what "mute inglorious" satirist we are indebted for this lasting compliment we shall probably never now determine. The word is at least discovered in the collection of Norman ballads subjoined to the 'Vaux-de-Vire' of Master Oliver Basselin published at Caen, 1821. This work dates from the early part of the sixteenth century, but has reference to the events of the preceding one. It more particularly speaks of Henry V. as dying _par le mal de St. Fiacre_ and of Henry VI. as ascending the throne. It is the latter monarch who is referred to in these verses as "little King Goddam"--
"Ils out chargé l'artillerye sus mer, Force bisquit et chascun ung bydon, Et par la mer jusqu'en Biscaye aller, Pour couronner leur petit roy godon."
We might search in vain for mention of the expression in English writings of the same period. In France however the epithet is repeated with equal malignancy in the angry verses which Guillaume Crétin was pleased to write upon the 'Battle of the Spurs':
"Cryant: Qui vive aux Godons d'Angleterre.
Seigneurs du sang, barons et chevaliers, Tous seculiers d'illustre parentage, Permettez vous à ses Godons, galliers, Gros godaillers, houspalliers, poullalliers, Prendre palliers au françoys heritaige?"
The aspersion however did not always rest with Frenchmen. Lord Hailes, in a criticism written about the year 1770, incidentally gives it as his experience that in Holland the children when they espy any English people say, "There come the Goddams," and that the Portuguese, as soon as they acquire a smattering of the tongue, exclaim, "How do you do, Jack? damn you!"[13]