In 1903, Massenet asked Gaston Buchillot to take a text from Croisset's Cherubin that he had not set in his opera, and adapt it for setting as a song. When Massenet finally offered a finished version in 1905, it was a classic salon song; relatively undemanding in both vocal and piano lines and unabashedly sentimental. The pensive vocal line unfolds in a series of somewhat predictable crescendos and decrescendos over the soft, pedaled chords in the piano. However, the careful shaping of the vocal line to follow the natural patterns of speech and the deft capturing of the mood elevate the song above the negligible; while a trifling piece, it is the trifling piece of a craftsman.

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