These three previously unpublished songs were not included in Poulenc's original set of six from 1918. Setting Guillaume Apollinaire's short poems from Le Bestiaire, Poulenc originally composed twelve very short songs in the cycle, but only six were published in 1918. Two of these three songs (Le Serpent; La Colombe) appeared at an auction in Paris in 1992 and were acquired by the French National Library. The third song, La Puce, was published in 1965 in a book of homage to the painter Dufy after Poulenc's death. The remaining three songs of the original 12-song cycle have not yet been found.