Jacques de la Palice died in the battle of Pavia (1525), while fighting against the Spanish armies as a Marshal under Francis I.
Between the 16th and the 18th century, the first stanza of this song evolved and multiplied into a great many humorous quatrains, which attributed to Jacques several other similar feats, like his custom to always go in person when eating at his neighbors.
An often-quoted example is[5] In the early 18th century the French poet Bernard de la Monnoye collected no less than 51 variants, which he joined into a comical song.
[6] The song was a success at the time, but was then forgotten until its rediscovery in the 19th century by Edmond de Goncourt.
However, some sources have a different version: they claim that, somewhere between the 18th and 19th centuries, an unrelated song — originally a parody of the Chanson de Roland — was rewritten to refer to La Palice.