The French national anthem is called the Marseillaise. It was a revolutionary song which was sung during the French Revolution, and was about victory and glory against the enemy. It was written as a song for the soldiers who fought against the armies of the foreign kings who attacked France during the Revolution. It embodies the spirit of the Revolution, namely Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

It was written by Captain Rouget de Lisle in 1792. When revolutionaries heard it in the French town Marseille, they liked it so much that they sang it as they marched to Paris. Parisians heard it as the marching revolutionaries passed, and called it the Marseillaise, after the town where the marchers came from.

It is a rather violent song about the Revolution and about how the absolute monarchs in countries around France wanted to crush it and bring back the Old Order. The song calls these kings “vile despots” (disgusting, cruel dictators) and “tigers who pitilessly ripped out their mothers’ wombs”! The kings’ armies are called slaves who have to do what their masters tell them to do – unlike the people of France, who would be free from the Old Order. Here is another example of the strong feelings against the Old Order in the song:

Arise children of the motherland,
Our day of glory has arrived!
Over us, the bloodstained
banner Of tyranny holds sway!
banner Of tyranny holds sway!
Oh, do you hear there in our fields
The roar of these ferocious soldiers?
Who came right here in our midst
To slaughter our sons and wives.

To arms, oh citizens!
Form up in serried ranks!
March on, march on,
May their impure blood
Flow in our fields!

(From: http://www.ambafrance-zm.org/5france/ficheanglais/facts/symbols/marseill.html)

For a complete English translation, click here.
To see the French words, click here.

To listen to the Marseillaise, click here.

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