VAUDEVILLE, vorPvil; t'n pron. Od'vt2P. Originally, a popular song with words relating to some story of the day; whence it has come to signify a species of drama in which dialogue is interspersed with songs of this description and with more or less of dancing and 'variety' acting. The name vaudeville is a corruption of ran (i.e. ral) de vire, from Ica Vmix de the name of two picturesque valleys in the Bocage of Nor mandy. One Olivier Basselin, a fuller in Vire, composed in the fifteenth century a lumber of humorous and satirical drinking songs, which be came very popular and with others of the sort be came known all over France by the name of the place where they originated. Jean le Houx pub lished many such in the sixteenth century. In Paris rani' de vire were sung especially on the Pont Neuf, to airs which therefore -were called punts neufs; and as the origin of the name for the songs was fm-gotten, it was related to the word and took its present form. As a kind
of popular song, the vaudeville lasted through the eighteenth century. At the same time the dra matic vaudeville came into existence, at first in the theatres of the public fairs and then in con nection with the opera combine, and plays of this kind were composed by Le Sage and other well-known writers. In the nineteenth century Scribe, Desaugiers, and many others wrote vaude villes, and several Parisian theatres have been largely devoted to their production. In other countries the vaudeville is more or less freely patterned after the French type. Consult: Gasti.;, Etude critique ct historigne stir dean le Iloux ct le van dc vire a to fin du XV76nc siecle (Paris, 1874) ; id., ed., Les Faux de vire de Jean le Roux (with introduction and notes, Paris, 1875) ; id., Olivier Basselin et le you de vire ( Paris, 1887).