The Marseillaise and its memories

Enjoy music today "Discovery" - National Centre for the Performing Arts official website "Classical Music Appreciation" Symphony Page 7 "March and Horn Series I", the first song "Marseillaise", the Rhine Legion Battle Song (1972), first female solo, followed by male chorus, and finally chorus. Majestic and magnificent.

In the last year of the university, the law department of jilin university, my alma mater, considered our needs as the first batch of international law students, specially after three years of English, we opened a second foreign language in French - international treaties have French texts, and French grammar is more rigorous.

Mr. Mou, a senior French teacher in the Department of Foreign Languages, taught us, and the young female teacher of her department listened to the class to learn from the class, and she also introduced Ms. Mou to be able to sing "Marseillaise" in its entirety in the classroom, and in the warm applause of everyone, Mr. Mou sang "Marseillaise" and "Marseillaise" The passionate tune left an indelible impression (Lasting impression).

Not only that, two Fujian students in the same class, they also deliberately went to the Foreign Language Department to observe french classes, the distance between the Liberal Arts Building of their alma mater and the Foreign Language Building was far away, and after they got out of class, they ran straight to the Foreign Language Building in order to arrive in time. Driven by them, I also went to the Department of Foreign Languages at my own expense to purchase French tape recordings to enhance my French textbook learning. The husband of the employee of my father's unit is Yang Difei, a French teacher in the foreign language department of the university, and I still go to his home on weekends to be tutored by him.

The national anthem is always exciting and inspiring. When the bar musicians in the anti-Nazi film "Casablanca" played "Marseillaise", all the French people present stood up and sang the national anthem in unison, and the French women mixed with the German soldiers also shouted "Long live France"!

Chinese the concerts of the People's Liberation Army Military Band mostly began with the national anthem of the People's Republic of China, and in the 1980s, Liu Yubao and Ma Wen conducted the military orchestra and zhang Haifeng, conductor of the military band in this century, both played the national anthem as a prelude to the concert. Liu Yubao said that this was patriotic education, and "The March of the Volunteer Army" was hastily written by Tian Han on tin foil packing cigarettes before he was arrested and imprisoned...

In the second American War of Independence, the captured American soldiers were tied to wooden stakes by the British army to witness the British attack on the American positions, and in the early morning of the next day of the fierce battle, through the smoke of gunfire, the soldier saw that after the baptism of fire, the American flag on the position was damaged but still flying, and he excitedly wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner Never Falls"!

The Chinese subtitles of "The Marseillaise" are recited in the film "The Golden Powder Queen": (Everyone) People should listen carefully, our glorious moment has arrived, the despotic rule oppresses us, blood is being slaughtered everywhere, and they are killing wives from your arms. Let's arm ourselves, move forward, move forward. Let's unite as one to destroy the enemy (March 23, 2014 CCTV "Nostalgia Theater").

(July 15, 2021 Ma Xiushan)

Related links: "Marseq Song", eternal war song (People's Daily, April 6, 2014 Shen Dali)

In early spring, my wife and I went to the cemetery of Çois Leroy, on the outskirts of Paris, to pay homage to Rouge de Lear, the author of the Marseillaise. Led by the garden keepers, we came to the cemetery, where a brown granite tombstone is engraved: Dedicated to the author of the Marseillaise, Ruzh de Lell (1760-1836). The tombstone is engraved with the first sentence of the "Marseillaise" stave, shining gold and very dazzling.

The garden keeper introduced: "The composer was in a desolate state of the evening, and was imprisoned in The Prison of St. Bellagi for debts, and his friend General Bran rescued him. He died on June 26, 1836, and was buried here. In 1915, when the French army lost the Battle of Artois, President Poancaré, in order to boost morale, decided to move the 'officer poet' de Lear to the Pantheon. Eventually, his remains were deposited in the Invalides."

At the beginning of the French Revolution, de Lear was stationed in Strasbourg after graduating from the Engineering Academy. On 20 April 1792, when King Louis XVI declared war on Austria, the mayor of Strasbourg, Dietrich, asked De Lear to compose a war song to boost the morale of the front. De Lear tried the melody on the violin repeatedly overnight, accompanied by the "Association of Friends of the Constitution" posting a proclamation on the street that day that read, "Take up arms, citizens", and composed the "Rhine Army Battle Song". At the dinner the next day, the mayor himself sang de Lear's new work, full of applause.

In July 1792, when the Austrian army invaded France, the French Constituent Assembly sounded the alarm to all citizens that "the motherland is in crisis". The Marseille Union army reinforced the capital, sang the "Battle Song of the Rhine Army" along the way, and on August 10 participated in the first "Paris Commune (1789-1795)" in French history to conquer the Tuileries Palace uprising and overthrow King Louis XVI. The Parisians named the song "Marseille".

However, de Lear had a bad fate. The Marseillaise was set as the French national anthem on the same day, and the author was still in prison. Sitting on the damp straw, I heard people outside the iron window singing their own blood-filled "Marseillaise", and tears filled their eyes...

Bid farewell to the garden keepers and head to the square in the city of Shuissy Leroy, named after the author of the Marseillaise. Here stands the monument to Rouge de Lear, where the author of the Marseillaise stands with his saber in his hand and his head held high on a towering pedestal, set off by blue skies and white clouds. The monument was built with public donations and was unveiled on July 6, 1902. Three reliefs on the monument show the magnificent scene of the "Marseillaise" from the French Revolution evoking the people to fight for freedom.

Historian Olivier pointed out in his book "A History of The Evaluation of Revolutionary War": "Future generations will inevitably be surprised by the majestic martial music when they hear military songs praising the achievements of the war." But it is true that this kind of song has inspired soldiers to go to the front line in spite of themselves." Although the Marseillaise has distinct characteristics of the times, it has been played as the French national anthem at most official events since 14 July 1795. Musician Berlioz also added orchestral instruments to it, which became more and more imposing.

De Lear went down in history with his Marseillaise. However, he himself did not take the aura on his head seriously. The Library of the French National Assembly preserves a handwritten letter written by him on 1 September 1830 stating that he and the Marseillaise were well known. He confessed: "I just suddenly had a faint inspiration under the revelation of truth, and the glory of achievement never came to mind... I really don't deserve this appreciation." This humble remark revealed the personality of de Lear, whom the French revered enduringly.

Today, in the city of Long Lesonne, on the anniversary of de Lère's birth, death or the advent of the Marseillaise, the clocks of the city theater take turns every hour to play the melody of the beginning of the Marseillaise, sounding far away... Reminisce about the exciting and unforgettable course of the French Revolution.