Today is the day to sing the War Song for the Army of the Rhine:
On 25 April 1792, the mayor of Strasbourg requested his guest Rouget de Lisle compose a song “that will rally our soldiers from all over to defend their homeland that is under threat”.[1] That evening, Rouget de Lisle wrote Chant de guerre pour l’Armée du Rhin[2] and dedicated the song to Marshal Nicolas Luckner, a Bavarian in French service from Cham.[3] The melody soon became the rallying call to the French Revolution and was adopted as La Marseillaise after the melody was first sung on the streets by volunteers (fédérés in French) from Marseille by the end of May. These fédérés were making their entrance into the city of Paris on 30 July 1792 after a young volunteer from Montpellier called François Mireur had sung it at a patriotic gathering in Marseille, and the troops adopted it as the marching song of the National Guard of Marseille.[2] A newly graduated medical doctor, Mireur later became a general under Napoléon Bonaparte and died in Egypt at age 28.
The song’s lyrics reflect the invasion of France by foreign armies (from Prussia and Austria) that were underway 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.
The Convention accepted it as the French national anthem in a decree passed on 14 July 1795, making it France’s first anthem.[4] It later lost this status under Napoleon I, and the song was banned outright by Louis XVIII and Charles X, only being re-instated briefly after the July Revolution of 1830.[5] During Napoleon I’s reign, Veillons au Salut de l’Empire was the unofficial anthem of the regime, and in Napoleon III’s reign, it was Partant pour la Syrie. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, “La Marseillaise” was recognised as the anthem of the international revolutionary movement; as such, it was adopted by the Paris Commune in 1871. Eight years later, in 1879, it was restored as France’s national anthem, and has remained so ever since.
Only the first verse gets much play these days:
Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Children of the Fatherland, let’s go,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
The day of glory has arrived!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
Tyranny is against us,
L’étendard sanglant est levé,
The bloody banner is raised,
L’étendard sanglant est levé !
The bloody banner is raised!
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
In the countryside do you hear
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?
The roar of these ferocious soldiers?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
They come into your arms
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes !
To kill your sons, your companions!Aux armes, citoyens,
To arms, citizens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Form your battalions,
Marchons, marchons!
Let us march, let us march!
Qu’un sang impur
So that an impure blood
Abreuve nos sillons !
Will water our furrows!
A note on translation: we don’t have a good English word for égorger, which means to slit the throat [of] or, less literally, to butcher. La gorge is the throat.