This text comes from Songs of French Canada, a historical songbook transcribed on Wikisource and reproduced from the pinned revision linked below.
In Nantes prison underground
Hand and foot is the prisoner bound.
No one sees him, night or day,
But the gaoler's daughter young and gay.
She carries him a daily store
Of bread and water, nothing more.
One day he asked her suddenly,
"What have the people said of me?"
"The people all have said of thee,
To-morrow thou diest on gallows tree."
"Since I must die, I pray thee, sweet,
Undo these fetters from my feet."
The girl has stooped her willingly,
And soon the prisoner's feet are free.
The prisoner stood up fearlessly,
And cast himself into the sea.
At the first plunge the eddies sweep
In the deep centre of the deep;
At the second plunge they parted wide,
And he came out safe on the farther side.
He turned him round defiantly,
And I trow a merry song sang he:
"God bless all women where'er they be,
And the gaoler's daughter especially.
"If I see Nantes again, by my life
The gaoler's daughter shall be my wife!"