| La Marseillaise: Historical background |
Everyone of us connects the Marseillaise with the French Revolution of 1789 to 1799. The history of the revolution and the events around it are very interesting and very complicated. Everything started with the attempt of Louis XVI to keep his power by inviting the Estates-General due to a severe financial crisis of the French state.
Because the third stand was not satisfied with the regulations they formed the National Assembly, however, even though they represented more than ninety percent of the people of France they did not have the same interests. First, it seemed that the hatred against the Ancient Regime held them together, but later things got out of hand quickly.
Storming of the Bastille in 1789 was the start of the military part of the revolution. Thanks to the absolute powers in their neighbourhood Germany, Austria and Russia, who did not really approve of a state ruled by its people, they intervened and helped the aristrocracy in France. The wars held on between 1792 and 1797. However, the National Assembly published the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen (looking to the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America) and in 1791 they completed the Constitution.
Napoleon took power in 1799 and step by step he ended the republican phase of France until he declared himself Emperor of the French in 1804.
La Marseillaise
The song was written for the Rhine army in the war against Prussia in April 1792 as ( Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin - war song for the Rhine Army) and was later named the Marseillaise, because it was the march song soldiers coming from Marseille to Paris sang in July 1792.
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