La Marseillaise

The song was composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792.  The Mayor of Strasbourg had asked Rouget de Lisle to compose a song which would inspire the troops and indeed nation of France in the wake of Austria and Prussia’s invasion.  Originally it was entitled “War Song for the Rhine Army.”  It would earn its more familiar name when troops marching from Marseilles (as fédérés) to Paris were heard to sing it.

It would be adopted as France’s first national anthem by the Convention in 1795 on the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille.  It would have a potted history from this point as its revolutionary nature so it downplayed under Bonaparte then reemerging when France was under threat in the wake of the disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 and the threat on the motherland itself.  Unsurprisingly under the restoration of the Bourbons it was banned only to reemerge under the Paris Commune of 1871 and finally be fully reinstated to the national anthem of France in 1879.

Barère on La Marseillaise.  Taken from Memoirs of Bertrand Barère Volume 2, H. S. Nichols, London (1896) p25-26

If anything can recall the songs of Tyrtaeus in Lacedaemon, it is the battle-song of Rouget de Lisle. This hymn, called the Marseillaise, has presided over the formation of our armies, our battles and our victories. Ah ! who is there amongst us who will not remember until his last breath those ravishing impressions which made all hearts thrill when the beautiful hymn of the Marseillaise was heard ? Kings, armed in the cause of a treacherous king, were penetrating into the heart of France, who on her part was without an army, and, so to speak, without other arms than her courage and the holiness of her cause. The boldest, while rallying to the defence of the country, doubted its triumph, while timid minds had already lost all hope.

A poet-warrior grows indignant at these movements of weakness. He takes up his lyre and calls upon the children of the country ; he points out to them the day of glory is at hand; he shows them held aloft the bloody standard of tyranny ; those ferocious soldiers whom you hear raging in your fields ; they come to fall upon our daughters and our comrades, and to slaughter them in our arms. "To arms, citizens! Form your battalions!" And the thronging citizens arm themselves, and the battalions form up and close their ranks. " March ! march ! " And they march ; they rush forward already victorious and triumphant in hope. " Let their impure blood drench our furrows." And the blood of the enemies of liberty was shed, and avenged that of its defenders and martyrs. '

From Strasburg, where this masterpiece, this lyrical phenomenon first appeared, it reached Paris. It began to circulate among the patriots, and soon the streets, the public squares and entertainments resound with it. On that pompous stage, where all the arts dispute the privilege of alluring, whose seductions should be more frequently turned to the benefit of public spirit, suddenly a performer with virile and sonorous voice would chant the hymn of the Marseillaise. The chorus repeats the warlike refrain after him ; the enthusiastic citizens mingle their voices with those of the chorus, and cheers and shouts of " Long live the Republic ! " burst from all sides. After each couplet, they have to wait until the frenzy has subsided before proceeding with the song.