The "Epigrammes de Clément Marot" were premiered in 1900 at a recital sponsored by the Société Nationale de Musique, featuring M. Hardy-Thé and the composer at the piano. In keeping with the society's purpose of promoting a native musical tradition, these two songs are based on the texts by French Renaissance poet Clément Marot (1496-1544) and evoke qualities that are particularly Gallic: a sense of delicacy, charm, clarity, polish, and wit. Like Ravel's contemporaneous "Menuet antique," (1895) these settings conjure up a distant past, and show Ravel to be edging towards a more abstract, classically restrained style.

The first song, "D'Anne qui me jecta de la neige" (1899) exhibits a deliberately archaic use of parallel fifths and octaves. Ravel's basic affinity for the clean melodic contours, distinct rhythms and firm structures of classicism is clearly in evidence, with just an occasional support by chords of the seventh and ninth and parallel fifths in the bass. "D'Anne jouant de l'espinette," the second song of the set, features a crisp, dance-like accompaniment for the harpsichord or piano, underscoring the poet's dainty portrait of Anne singing and playing the spinet. The interplay of tonic minor and modal dominant is exhibited throughout, and the song concludes rather unexpectedly on the modal dominant.

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