11/24/22, 1:25 PM Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle - Wikipedia

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (French:  [klod ʒɔzɛf
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle
ʁuʒɛ d(ə) lil]), sometimes spelled de l'Isle or de Lile[3]
(10 May 1760 – 26 June 1836), was a French army
officer of the French Revolutionary Wars. He is known
for writing the words and music of the Chant de guerre
pour l'armée du Rhin in 1792, which would later be
known as La Marseillaise and become the French
national anthem.[4]

Contents
Early life
Career
Rouget de Lisle sings la Marseillaise for the first
La Marseillaise
time
Death
Born 10 May 1760

References Lons-le-Saunier, France

Further reading Died 26 June 1836 (aged 76)

Choisy-le-Roi, Seine-et-Oise,
France
Early life Allegiance France

Rouget de Lisle was born at Lons-le-Saunier, reputedly Service/ French Army

on a market day. His parents lived in the neighbouring branch
village of Montaigu.[5] A plaque was placed at the Years of 1784–1793
precise spot of his birth and a statue erected in the service
town's center in 1882. He was the eldest son of Claude
Ignace Rouget (5 April 1735 – 6 August 1792) at Orgelet Rank Captain
and Jeanne Madeleine Gaillande (2 July 1734 – 20 Awards Chevalier. Légion d'honneur
March 1811).[6] (1831)[1][2]

In 1784, he was initiated into "Les Frères discrets", a Other work Chant de guerre pour l'armée du
masonic lodge in Charleville, just after being promoted Rhin, "La Marseillaise"
officer.[7]

Career
He enlisted into the army as an engineer and attained the rank of captain. A royalist like his father, he
refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new constitution.[1] Rouget de Lisle was cashiered and
thrown into prison in 1793, narrowly escaping the guillotine.[4] He was freed during the Thermidorian
Reaction and retired to Montague.[1]
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La Marseillaise

The song that has immortalized him,

"La Marseillaise", was composed at
Strasbourg, where Rouget de Lisle
was garrisoned in April 1792. France
had just declared war on Austria, and
the mayor of Strasbourg and
worshipful master of the local
masonic lodge, baron Philippe-
Statue of Rouget de Lisle in Lons-le-
Frédéric de Dietrich, held a dinner for
Saunier, France.
Rouget de Lisle in 1792. the officers of the garrison, at which
he lamented that France had no
national anthem. Rouget de Lisle returned to his quarters and wrote the
words in a fit of patriotic excitement. The piece was at first called Chant de guerre pour l'armée du
Rhin ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine") and only received its name of Marseillaise from its
adoption by the Provençal volunteers whom Barbaroux introduced into Paris and who were
prominent in the storming of the Tuileries Palace on 10 August 1792.[4][2]

After the war, Rouget de Lisle wrote a few other songs of the same kind as the "Marseillaise", and in
1825 he published Chants français (French Songs) in which he set to music fifty poems by various
authors. His Essais en vers et en prose (Essays in Verse and Prose, 1797) contains the Marseillaise; a
prose tale Adelaide et Monville of the sentimental kind; and some occasional poems.[4] He returned
to public life after the July Revolution and was awarded the Legion of Honour by Louis Philippe I.[2]

Death
Rouget de Lisle died in poverty in Choisy-le-Roi, Val de Marne.[8]
His ashes were transferred from Choisy-le-Roi cemetery to the
Invalides on 14 July 1915, during World War I.[8][9][10]

References
1. Harry Thurston Peck, Frank Richard Stockton, Nathan Haskell
Dole, Julian Hawthorne, Caroline Ticknor: The World's Great
Masterpieces (American Literary Society, 1901), p. 9577 (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=JxiGAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA9577&
dq=Claude_Joseph_Rouget_de_Lisle&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-nIZV
cOEKoOqgwS9voCQAw&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAzhG#v=onepag
e&q=Claude_Joseph_Rouget_de_Lisle&f=false).
2. The New York Times Current History: The European War,
Volume 16, 1918. p. 200 (https://books.google.com/books?id=
au19AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA204&dq=Claude_Joseph_Rouget_de Rouget de Lisle's cenotaph in
_Lisle&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-nIZVcOEKoOqgwS9voCQAw&ved=0 Choisy-le-Roi, France.
CFsQ6AEwBzhG#v=onepage&q=Claude_Joseph_Rouget_de
_Lisle&f=false).
3. Brian N. Morton, Donald C. Spinelli, Beaumarchais and the American Revolution (Lexington
Books, 2003), p. 303, ISBN 9780739104682.
4. Chisholm 1911.
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11/24/22, 1:25 PM Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle - Wikipedia

5. Lons, une "petite" ville en lettres capitales (http://www.laterredecheznous.com/news/archivestory.p

hp/aid/942/Lons,_une__petite__ville_en_lettres_capitales.html) at La Terre de chez nous (in
French) 10 April 2004; retrieved 7 August 2013.
6. Family Tree Rouget (http://www.geneall.net/F/per_page.php?id=475543)
7. Dictionnaire Universelle de la Franc-Maçonnerie, ed. Jode and Cara (Larousse, 2011).
8. Norman Davies: Europe: A history, p. 718.
9. The Marsellaise. Honouring its author (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=
HNS19151026.2.9) Hawera & Normanby Star 26 October 1915, at National Library of New
Zealand
10. Tribute to Composer (http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1537604) The Argus (Australia), 16 July
1915, p. 7, at Trove.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.
(1911). "Rouget de Lisle, Claude Joseph". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge
University Press. p. 770.

Further reading
Texts on Wikisource:
"Rouget de l'Isle, Claude Joseph". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
"Rouget de Lisle". The Nuttall Encyclopædia. 1907.
"Rouget de Lisle, Claude Joseph". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
"Rouget de Lisle, Claude Joseph". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.
Free scores by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle at the International Music Score Library Project
(IMSLP)

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