During the visit to Brive-la-Gaillarde in 1940, Poulenc sketched a little piece for the children of his cousins: Sophie, Sylvie, Benoit, Florence and Delphine Périer, Yvan, Alain, Marie-Christine and Marguerite-Marie Villotte, and their two friends Marthe Bosredon and André Lecoeur.

This took the form of a musical background to Jean de Brunhoff's popular illustrated children's story about Babar, a baby elephant whose mother is killed by a huntsman. Fortunately Babar meets a kind elderly lady...