Annotation:Valenciennes
X:1 T:Valenciennes M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Country Dance B:Preston's Twenty-Four Country Dances for the Year 1794 (No. 238, p. 99) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G g3d3|B3 G2D|E2E F2F|GBc def| g3d3|B3 G2D|EGE FAF|G3 G,3:| |:d3 bgd|c3 afc|B3 gdB|AFD AFD| d3 bgd|c3 afc|BdB cAF|G3 G,3:|]
VALENCIENNES. AKA and see "Bishop (3) (The)," "Bishop's (The)," "Deil amang the Mealmongers (The)." English, Country Dance Tune (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Valenciennes [1] is a city in northern France that was besieged by the First Coalition against Revolutionary France in 1793. Following a protracted siege the city was captured and occupied in July by Anglo-Austrian forces under the Duke of York and the Prince of Saxe-Coburg, and only retaken by the French Revolutionary armies in August 1794. Several tunes were written to commemorate the victory of Valenciennes, as does this one, which appears in an English country dance volume of 1794. The publication perhaps predates the return of control of the city to the French. The tune was picked up by Scottish sources and appears in Hamilton's Universal Tune Book (1854) and Köhlers’ Violin Repository, Book 2 (1881-1885, p.97) under the title "Deil amang the Mealmongers (The)."
