LA MARSEILLAISE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 150, 26 June 1915, Page 18

LA MARSEILLAISE

Philip, Gibbs on the Marseillaise, tung on the great retreat of August-Septem-ber, 1914 :— There was the passion of old heroism in it, of old and bloody deeds, with the wild wars of revolution and lust for liberty. Rouget de Lisle' wrote it one night at Strsusburg, when he was drunk, says the legend. But it was not the drunkenness of wine which inspired his soul. It was the drunkenness of that year 1792, when the desire of liberty made Frenchmen mad. . . . The men of Marseilles came singing it into Paris. The Parisians heard and caught up the strains. It marched to the victories of the Republican armies. "W© fought one against ten," wrote a French general, "but 'La Marseillaise' was on our side." (< "Send us," wrote another general, "ten thousand men and one copy of 'La Marseillaise,' and I will answer for victory." A hundred years and more have passed since then, but the tune has not gone stale, and the words have not lost their magic. Again and again in the Orders of the Day one reads that "the company went into action singing 'La Marseillaise".* Lieutenant X. was still singing when, after carying the enemy's Pos^ion, he was shot in the throat"; or The Chasseurs Algins climbed the ridge to the song of 'La Marseillaise.'" ,