The song "Auprès de ma Blonde" (loosely translated from French as "Next to my Sweetheart") was a 1600s lament by a French soldier while imprisoned by his Dutch captors during the French-Dutch War which raged at the time. The French (Catholics) were fighting a regional war with their Dutch (Protestant) foes over the fate of the country which would become Belgium...half Walloons, half Flemish...and all these years later, still divided by their religious differences. The song is starkly divided by the separated French wife's declarations of doing anything she had to do to free her husband - including trading the King of France as ransom for her loved-one's return! - while he, completely isolated from the rest of the world, sings simply that he wishes he was by her side ("auprès de ma blonde") every evening and hoping she slept well at night. ("Blonde", here, is an idiomatic usage for girlfriend or sweetheart - not, literally, a blonde-haired woman.)