Hey, this is cool (from mav's link): It is the alexandrine (l’alexandrin) or twelve syllable line ( so- called from a 12th Century poem entitled Le roman d’Alexandre) If I ever knew this, I'd forgotten it.

Edit: in French, roman means a novel. So I don't think it could be related to romance languages, right? Or is it? If not, how did the French come to have this word meaning what it means?

Edit 2:
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.