TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 1122, 16 December 1914, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

HISTORY OF THE " MARSEILIAISE."

A soldier, who was by lvav of being an amateur poet add niusiciau, wroto and composed "Tho tlio great national anthem of France, iu a night. Rouget do Lisle was his name, and ho was a captnin in the engineers, and ifc was in April, 1792, that ho was inspired to wi'ito the song which brought him fame in a flash. Franco had declared war against Austria, and Do Lisle had volunteered for service in her army. But France, though she was in Anns against all Europe- tit the time, liad 110 great national sons, no hymn epitomizing her hopes and fears. Tho Mayor of Strassburg, who on the eve of the campaign entertained to dinner as many of the volunteers as liis slender larder would allow, spoke of this want of a great war song. One of the volunteers turned to De Lisle on the Mayor's words. _ " Come, you are a poet and a musician can't you write a song?" he asked. The young engineer shook his head, but his comrades—perhaps to flatter him or perhaps because they really had some belief in him—pressed the matter. And so, at last, promising to see what he could do, Be Lisle took his violin and shut himself up in a top room.

All through that liiglit he wdoed words and music, and by seven o'clock in the morning, too excited to be tired, he rushed into the room of the friend who had first made the suggestion that he should try to " do something." "Listen!" he cried, "listen to tws, and tell me what you think." And there and then, in a bedroom of the house of the Mayor of Strassburg, with the sun of a spring morning gleaming in at the window, De Lisle first played "The Marseillaise" —or "The Chant of War of the Army," as he then called it, to a listener.

The name of " Marseillaise" came through the Parisians first hearing the song sung by the volunteers of Marseilles.— Weekly."