MARSEILLAISE, La, the French na tional anthem, a revolutionary song, composed by an engineer officer, Rouge de Lisle, during the night of 24-25 April 1792 in Strassburg. The song quickly spread. The people of Mar seilles adopted it to be sung at the meetings of their clubs. It was they who carried it all over France, and hence from them it received its name. De Lisle was a proscribed royalist at the time. His mother wrote to him in alarm, asking, °What is this revolutionary hymn, sung by bands of brigands who are prowling through France and with which our name is linked?" He had originally given it the name of 'Le chant de guerre pour l'armee du Rhin' Song of the Rhine Army'). Lamartine wrote that De Lisle himself was terrified at the tre mendous effect of his composition: "It was the fire-water of the Revolution, which instilled into the senses and soul of the people the in toxication of battle." Carlyle describes it as "the luckiest musical composition ever promul gated, the sound of which will make the blood tingle in men's veins; and whole armies and assemblages will sing it, with eyes weeping and burning, with hearts defiant of Death, Despot and Devil." On 8 Jan. 1795 the Directory or
dered the air to be played at all theatres. Its inspiring strains are known throughout the world more than perhaps any other melody. During the Empire and the Restoration the Marseillaise was suppressed as a revolutionary demonstration, but was revived with the July Revolution of 1830. The original version con sisted of only six couplets; the seventh was added when it was dramatized for the Fete de la Federation, in order to complete the characters among whom the verses were dis tributed, namely, an old man, a soldier, a wife and a child. The stanza commencing with "Nous entrerons" is the one added, intended for the child part. It was written by Dubois, editor of the Journal de la Litierature. The complete version follows, with a strict translation.