Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Marseillaise

MARSEILLAISE, a song written by Rouget de Lisle, an officer of artillery in the garrison of Strasbourg in 1792. It received its title from having been sung by a party of the Marseillaise Club as they entered Paris on the invitation of Madame Roland; the song, though less sanguinary in sentiment than most of the songs of the Revolution, was employed as accompaniment to many of the horrible deeds of that and of later periods, and by association became dangerous enough to be included among the songs prohibited to be sung in France under the Bourbons and the Bonapartes. It has become the national air of France, and during the World War was sung and played universally in the Allied countries, and in the United States.