"
La Marseillaise" ("The Song of
Marseille"; ) is the
national anthem of
France.
History
"La Marseillaise" is a
song written and composed by
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in
Strasbourg on
April 25,
1792. Its original name was "
Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin" ("War Song for the
Army of the Rhine") and it was dedicated to Marshal
Nicolas Luckner, a
Bavarian-born French officer from
Cham. It became the rallying call of the
French Revolution and received its name because it was first sung on the streets by volunteers (
fédérés) from
Marseille upon their arrival in
Paris after a young volunteer from
Montpellier called
François Mireur had sung it at a patriotic gathering in Marseille. A newly graduated medical doctor, Mireur later became a general under
Napoleon Bonaparte and died in Egypt at 28.
The song's lyrics reflect the invasion of France by foreign armies (from
Prussia and
Austria) which was ongoing when it was written; Strasbourg itself was attacked just a few days later. The invading forces were repulsed from France following their defeat in the
Battle of Valmy.
"La Marseillaise" was screamed during the
levée en masse and met with huge success.
thumb|[[François Mireur|Général Mireur, 1770-1798, anonymous, terra cotta, Faculty of Medicine, Montpellier, France.]]
The Convention accepted it as the French national anthem in a decree passed on
July 14, 1795, but it was then banned successively by
Napoleon I,
Louis XVIII, and
Napoleon III, only being reinstated briefly after the July Revolution of 1830. During Napoleon I's reign
Veillons au Salut de l'Empire was the unofficial anthem of the regime and during Napoleon III's reign
Partant pour la Syrie. In 1879, "La Marseillaise" was restored as the country's national anthem, and has remained so ever since.
Arrangements
During the
French Revolution,
Giuseppe Cambini published
Patriotic Airs for Two Violins, in which the song is
quoted literally and as a variation theme, with other patriotic songs.
"La Marseillaise" was arranged for soprano, chorus and orchestra by
Hector Berlioz in about 1830.
Robert Schumann, while setting some
Heinrich Heine poems to music, used part of
La Marseillaise for his setting (Op. 49, No. 1) of
Heinrich Heine's poem "The Two Grenadiers". The quotation appears at the end of the song when the old French soldier dies. Schumann also incorporated the Marseillaise as a major motif in his overture, 'Hermann und Dorothea' inspired by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Richard Wagner also quotes from
La Marseillaise in his setting of a French translation of Heine's poem.
Franz Liszt wrote a
piano transcription of the anthem.
In 1882,
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky used extensive notes from
La Marseillaise to represent the
invading French army in his
1812 Overture.
During
World War I, bandleader
James Reese Europe played a jazz version of
La Marseillaise, which can be heard on Part 2 of the Ken Burns TV documentary
Jazz.
Edward Elgar quoted the opening of
La Marseillaise in his choral work
The Music Makers, based on
Arthur O'Shaughnessy's
Ode, at the line "We fashion an empire's glory", where he also quotes the opening phrase of
Rule, Britannia!.
Serge Gainsbourg recorded a
reggae version in 1978.
Henrik Wergeland wrote a
Norwegian version of the song in 1831, called
The Norwegian Marseillaise.
Both in Peru and Chile the
Partido Aprista Peruano and the
Socialist Party of Chile wrote their own versions of the Marseillaise to be their anthems.
Lyrics
Only the first verse (and sometimes the fifth and sixth) and the first chorus are sung today in France. There are some slight historical variations in the lyrics of the song; the following is the version listed at official website of the French Presidency.
[, l’Elysée.]
Historical use in Russia
In
Russia, the Marseillaise was used as a
republican revolutionary anthem by those who knew
French starting already in the 18th century, almost simultaneously with its adoption in France. In 1875
Peter Lavrov, a
narodist revolutionary and theorist, wrote a Russian-language text (not a translation of the French one) to the same melody. This "
Worker's Marseillaise" became one of the most popular revolutionary songs in Russia and was used in the
Revolution of 1905. After the
February Revolution of 1917, it was used as the semi-official national anthem of the new Russian republic. Even after the
October Revolution, it remained in use for a while alongside
The Internationale.
In popular culture
Movies
- In The Simpsons Movie, the townspeople of Springfield use the tune to write an anthem ("Springfield Anthem"), declaring that the French have "a few things they do well, like making love, wine and cheese".
- In the film "The Man in the Iron Mask" with Leonardo Di Caprio "La Marseillaise" plays during the final scene in which King Louis and the Queen Mother stand before the palace in Versailles while Aramis in a voice overlay narrates the epilogue.
- In the 2007 film La Môme, the young Édith Piaf is shown singing the first verse and then the chorus of the song after her father's act re-enacting a true moment of the iconic chanteuse's life.
- The song is part of a famous scene in the film Casablanca in which Czech resistance leader Viktor Laszlo leads French resistance sympathisers in Rick's Cafe Americain to drown out the German soldiers singing "Die Wacht am Rhein". Various portions of La Marseillaise appear as recurring themes throughout the film, in the opening credits, and at the end of the film, when most of the entire song is played.
- Abel Gance's film Napoléon features a scene in which the song is first sung by the French masses.
- On the other hand, the movie The Brothers Grimm which takes place in a German country under French occupation, the same kind of scene can be seen with Germans singing their traditional songs in a tavern only to switch to "La Marseillaise" when French army officers enter. This is actually an error, as "La Marseillaise" was banned during Napoleon's rule.
- In the 1981 movie, Escape to Victory, the final scene features the entire crowd of the stadium in occupied Paris spontaneously singing La Marseillaise as a cry of war, to support the POW's goalkeeper (played by Sylvester Stallone) before a decisive penalty kick at the end of the soccer game.
- In the 1937 French movie Grand Illusion, directed by Jean Renoir, that takes place during World War I, a group of British and French prisoners of war in a German POW camp spontaneously begin singing La Marseillaise in front of their German captors when it is announced that the French Army has won a significant victory in Verdun. Renoir traced the history of the song in the film he made the following year, La Marseillaise.
- In the Blackadder movie Blackadder: Back & Forth, when Blackadder returns from his trip through time, he discovers that England is now under French rule because Napoléon won the Battle of Waterloo, due to the fact that Blackadder accidentally crushed the Duke of Wellington with his time machine. As his now-French guests walk up the stairs after conversing with him, they sing the first two lines of La Marseillaise.
- In the film Master and Commander, Captain Aubrey's speech speech before the big battle with the French: "Do you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly? Want to call that raggedy-ass Napoleon your king? You want your children to sing the "La Marseillaise?"
- In the opening of 55 Days at Peking (1963), La Marseillaise can be heard, along with a number of other national anthems, playing over the European legation district of Peking.
Music
- Yannick Noah, Aux Rêves. Noah also wrote a song, Aux Arbres Citoyens, a play on the line “Aux armes, citoyens.” The song is about the necessity of people to stand up for the environment and defend the trees.
- Jimi Hendrix during an 1967 Paris concert, played a psychedelic version of the anthem. A video recording of the concert was immediately confiscated by the French government due to the perceived insult to national heritage.
- The Slovenian industrial/techno music group Laibach’s album Volk features a version, with Laibach’s own lyrics. The album Volk (album) is entirely composed of songs which are based on various national anthems.
- There are various versions of the music. Sheet music can be found at . An official version from the website of the French President can be found at the wayback machine's archive here: .
- Crass, as part of Bloody Revolutions.
- The German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten use a piece of the Beatles' introduction to All You Need Is Love in their song Headcleaner I on the album Tabula Rasa which also contains lyrical references to the earlier mentioned Beatles song.
Miscellany
- An English language 'rugby song' version exists, as known in France among rugby fans.
- In Monty Python's Broadway musical Spamalot when confronted by French knights in the song "Run Away!"
- Also featured in Isaac Asimov's short SF story Battle-hymn about how the national anthem is used as a subliminal advertising ploy.
- Featured in the Monty Python sketches, "A Man with a Tape Recorder up His Nose" and "A Man with a Tape Recorder up His Brother's Nose" and also "French Lecture on Sheep-aircraft"
- In the cartoon I Am Weasel, when the character I.R. Baboon tries to make a transatlantic bridge from the United States to France, he mistakenly builds it to Mexico. When he reaches the end, he sings a song with a similar tune.
- In the game Populous, when a map is played on the Francaise landscape it opens with the first ten or so seconds of La Marseillaise.
See also
