Hinky Dinky, Pctrley-Voo?

Armentieres is a nondescript town in northern France with but one claim to fame: its mademoiselle, heroine of hundreds of World War I ditties, most of them dirty. For 50 years, it was a fame that Armentieres preferred to leave unclaimed, but recently the town fathers have had a change of heart. Hoping for a tourist boom that might stimulate its sagging farm economy, Armentieres last week began a fund-raising campaign for a statue in mademoiselle's, uh, honor.

Actually, says Tourist Bureau Chairman Louis Jeanson, 74, who, together with the local antique dealer, is in charge of the campaign, most of those hinky-dinky ditties about her were untrue. She was not a mademoiselle at all, but a tall, slim widow named Marie Lecoq who worked as a waitress at the Cafe de la Paix. Furthermore, during the four years that British and Commonwealth troops were stationed in Armentieres, she was more virtuous than many of her unsung sisters. The ditty got its start, in fact, when she roundly slapped a British officer who tried to kiss her in the cafe. Its first verse, written by a sergeant who watched the action:

Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parley-voo?

Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parley-voo?

Mademoiselle from Armentieres,

She hadn't been kissed in many years,

Hinky dinky, parley-voo?

Unfortunately for mademoiselle, her monument will be nearly as gauche as most of the ditties about her. To be erected whenever Armentieres can raise the $14,000 that it will cost, it depicts her as a sort of bedroom Joan of Arc surrounded by four admiring soldiers, who are holding her aloft on a serving tray.

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