Ballad scholar Bertrand Bronson once offered half-serious “proof” that “Mademoiselle from Armentières” (both the character and the song) “is in the direct line from an Elizabethan daughter of Eve.”

THdoesn't quite pass muster. He prints a song from William Wager’s play "The Longer Thou Livest the more Fool Thou" (1568):


There was a mayde cam out of Kent,
Deintie love, deintie love,
Theere was a mayde cam out of Kent,
Daungerous be.
There was a mayde came out of Kent;
Fayre, propre, small and gent
As euer vpon the grounde went.
For so it should be.

“The Mayde of Kent” offers ribald possibilities akin to those of the Mademoiselle, but the resemblance goes not much further. The stanza form bears some similarity to that of the latter song, but the scansion, particularly in the final lines, is a bad fit – as is the presence of an extra line of description or narration. There is no genealogical textual relationship between the maid and the mademoiselle.

(Personality, of course, is a different story.)