But Busnois' chansons (French secular songs) are the works on which his reputation mainly rests. Most are rondeaux, but some are bergerettes; many of them achieved the status of popular songs, and some were perhaps based on other popular songs which are now lost. He probably wrote the words for almost all of his chansons (anticipating Wagner by four hundred years!). Some of his tunes were recycled as cantus firmus for Masses composed more than a generation after his death, for instance "Fortuna desperata" (which was used both by Obrecht and Josquin). An unusual chanson is "Terrible dame", which is not only an antiphonal dialogue (unique in the chanson literature) but has an Old French title requiring no special skill to translate.