Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rouget de Lisle chantant la Marseillaise (Rouget de Lisle, singing the Marseillaise) ( Isidore Pils )

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle or Claude Joseph Rouget de l'Isle , born Claude Joseph Rouget (born May 10, 1760 in Lons-le-Saunier , † June 26, 1836 in Choisy-le-Roi ) was a French composer , poet and officer .

Monument in his hometown Lons-le-Saunier

He wrote and composed on the night of 25 to 26. April 1792 during the declaration of war on Austria in Alsace Strasbourg , the war song of the French Army of the Rhine Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin, which then later, under the name La Marseillaise , the revolutionary song has been. The Marseillaise was declared the national anthem as early as 1795 , but was banned several times in the following years and was not finally recognized until 1879 .

Life

Claude Joseph Rouget was born on May 10, 1760, the eldest son of Claude Ignace Rouget, a royal lawyer for the Bailliage and the Présidial Court in Lons-le-Saunier , and Jeanne Madeleine Gaillande. After attending school in his hometown, he completed military training in Paris and then at the army engineering school in Mézières, founded in 1748 .

After another stay in Paris from February 1790, he came to Strasbourg in 1791 , where he was appointed captain in February 1792 and in April of the same year composed the patriotic war song Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin , later known as the Marseillaise and the French national anthem.

During the Revolution , Rouget de Lisle initially represented moderate positions and was involved in the controversies between Feuillants and Jacobins . During the Terreur he was imprisoned and subsequently became an opponent of the revolution. However , he rejected the royalist uprising of the 13th Vendémiaire in 1795. Napoleon Bonaparte , who had commissioned him to write a hymn that was supposed to displace the Marseillaise but remained unsuccessful, he was critical of his imperial ambitions.

During the Restoration after the end of Napoleonic rule, Rouget de Lisle tried to win the attention and favor of the new rulers with royalist writings and songs, while he made a living by translating and transcribing. In 1826 he came into debtors' prison , which he did in Paris prison Sainte-Pélagie was serving. It was not until 1830 that King Louis-Philippe I gave him honors and a pension.

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle died on June 26, 1836 at the age of 76 in Choisy-le-Roi.

Posthumous honors

On July 14, 1915, his remains were transferred to the Invalides Cathedral. The ceremony took place in the context of the First World War , which had started just under a year earlier. In view of the longer-than-expected conflict, it was intended to counteract any signs of war fatigue. The ceremony was attended by the Presidents of both Houses of Parliament, Antonin Dubost and Paul Deschanel , as well as President Raymond Poincaré . He spoke at the ceremony and took the opportunity to affirm his view of the Central Powers' sole responsibility for war in a speech that has become famous .

Originally a burial was planned in the Panthéon . However, this failed at the last moment due to a formal error. The decision on the burial was taken so late that the necessary parliamentary procedure could not be completed. Therefore only the less prestigious burial in the Invalides Cathedral came into question. The transfer to the Panthéon should be made up for, but this did not happen. A corresponding initiative by the Member of Parliament Georges Sarre in 1999 also remained unsuccessful. To this day (2014) the remains of Rouget de Lisle are buried in a part of the Invalids Dome that is not open to the public.

A street in the 1st arrondissement of Paris has been named after him since 1879, as have streets and squares in Marseille , Lyon , Strasbourg and other cities. In his native town of Lons-le-Saunier , a monument dedicated to him was unveiled in 1882, with a statue of Rougets by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi . In the same year a memorial with a statue was erected in his place of death, Choisy-le-Roi ; it comes from the sculptor Léopold Clément Steiner . Several schools in France also bear his name.

plant

  • Bayard in Bresse . Libretto, 1790/91. Music: Stanislas Champein .
  • Romances , 1796.
  • Essais en vers et en prose , 1796.
  • L'école des mères , comedy, 1798.
  • La matinée , Idyll, 1811.
  • Cinquante chants français, paroles de divers auteurs, mis en musique par Rouget de Lisle , collection of songs of war and revolution, 1825.
  • Macbeth , Tragédie lyrique. Libretto after Shakespeare . Premiere in Paris in 1827. Music: Hippolyte Chelard .
  • Souvenirs de Quiberon .

As a figure in poetry

Web links

Commons : Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Rouget de Lisle . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 17, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1909, pp.  195–196 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. In: Encyclopédie Larousse en ligne. Éditions Larousse, accessed November 21, 2015 (French).
  3. ↑ a b Rouget de Lisle au Panthéon: une histoire contrariée. Lons-le-Saunier city ​​council , July 2, 2015, accessed on November 22, 2015 (French).
  4. ^ A b Raymond Poincaré : Au service de la France: neuf années de souvenirs. VI, Les tranchées, 1915 . Éditions Plon, Paris 1930, p.  319–322 ( digitized on Gallica ).
  5. ↑ a b Les Invalides dans la Grande Guerre, episode 14: transfert de la dépouille de Rouget de Lisle. Musée de l'Armée , September 2014, accessed November 22, 2015 (French).
  6. ↑ Rue Rouget de L'Isle. City of Paris ( Mairie de Paris ), accessed on November 21, 2015 (French, information on the location, length, history and naming of the street).
  7. ↑ Street names Rue Rouget de Lisle or Rue Rouget de L'Isle exist in Marseille , Avignon , Montpellier , Nîmes , Issy-les-Moulineaux , Lons-le-Saunier and Choisy-le-Roi ; furthermore Quai Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg , Place Rouget de Lisle in Lyon .
  8. ↑ Auguste Bartholdi - Repères chronologiques. Musée Bartholdi , Colmar , accessed on November 28, 2015 (French).
  9. ↑ Rouget de Lisle. Choisy-le-Roi town council , September 24, 2014, accessed November 28, 2015 (French).
  10. ↑ Collège Rouget de Lisle in Charleville-Mézières , Lons-le-Saunier and Schiltigheim .
personal data
SURNAME Rouget de Lisle, Claude Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rouget, Claude Joseph (maiden name); Rouget de L'Isle, Claude Joseph; Rouget Delisle, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French composer, poet and officer
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1760
PLACE OF BIRTH Lons-le-Saunier
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1836
Place of death Choisy-le-Roi