Marseillaise, La

DESCRIPTION: French language: "Allons, enfants de la Patrie! Le jour gloire est arrive!" The listeners are urged to fight for France and freedom, and drive foreigners off French soil
AUTHOR: probably Rouget de Lisle
EARLIEST DATE: 1792 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: patriotic France nonballad
FOUND IN: France
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #1384-#1386, p. 94, "La Marseillaise" (2 references, plus six various English translations under #1385 and #1386)
Fireside-Book-of-Folk-Songs, p. 223, "La Marseillaise" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 302, "La Marseillaise" (1 French text plus English version)
Heart-Songs, pp. 494-495, "Marseillaise Hymn" (1 text, 1 tune, an English translation only)
Jolly-Miller-Songster-5thEd, #28, Marseillaise Hymn" (1 text, an English translation only)
Dime-Song-Book #1/72, p. 55 and #1/64 p. 51, "The Marseilles Hymn" (1 text, an English translation only); #34, p. 45, "The Marseilles Hymn" (1 text, an English translation only)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, p. 354, "La Marseillaise"
Ford-SongHistories, pp. 163-168, "La Marseillaise" (1 English text)
DT, LAMARSEI
Roud #11238
SAME TUNE:
I'm a Soldier Bound for Glory (File: ElTo025)
The Texan Marseillaise (by James Haines; [H. M. Wharton], War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy, pp. 191-192)
The Swineish Multitude (1798 rebel song; cf. Thomas Pakenham, The Year of Liberty, p. 173)
Stand By That Flag ("Ye sons of freedom, wake to glory") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 149)
The Union Marseillaise [1] ("Arouse, ye men who love your Nation") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 163)
The Union Marseillaise [2] ("Arise! Arise! ye sons of patriot sires") (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 163)
The Workingman's Marseille ("Ye sons of labor, Duty calling, Uplift your standard to the sky") (FOner, p. 129)
The Last General March ("For the Revolution of the 24th of February") ("Onward! Drummers, beat the reveille! Ye faithful guards, blow your horns!") (Foner, p. 82)
Labor's Marseillais ("To be sung at Scenic Park, Labor Day, Sept. 3, 1900) ("'Tis no disgrace but virtue grand to earn one's bread") (Foner, p. 173, with a reproduction of a broadside verion on p. 176)
Soldiers' Marseillaise ("Ye living millions, true and earnest; Ye soldiers brave and battle-tried") (Garfield and Arthur Campaign Song Book 1880, p. 5)
NOTES [149 words]: Summarizing the notes in Fuld:
There are all sorts of ironies associated with this song. To begin with, it wasn't associated with Marseilles; it was published as "Chant de Guerre pour l'Armee du Rhin" (more or less at the far end of France). Even more ironically, the author (Rouget de Lisle, 1760-1836) is reported to have been a royalist, and even to have been imprisoned for his support for the crown. (According to Ford-SongHistories, various attempts have been made to show that de Lisle was not responsible for the piece, but most still credit him as the author.)
The song was written in 1792, when France still had a king though it was doing its best to ignore him. France wound up at war with Austria and Prussia. It appears that the association with Marseilles came about because volunteers from Marseilles heard it sung, and then joined in storming the Tuileries (August 10, 1792). - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: FSWB302

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