Les esclaves sont des enfants! CHEUR DES ENFANS. La république nous appelle, etc. inspired the music, and the music which in- | Les républicains sont des hommes, Our readers who are familiar with the music will be best able to judge how much the song loses from its absence; but we nevertheless venture to offer a version of the whole. LE CHANT DU DÉPART. UNE EPOUSE. Partez, vaillants époux: les combats sont vos fêtes; Partez, modèles des guerriers. Nous cueillerons des fleurs pour enceindre vos Nos mains tresseront des lauriers; La victoire en chantant nous ouvre la barrière, La république nous appelle, etc. Et du Nord au Midi la trompette guerrière A sonné l'heure des combats. Tremblez, ennemis de la France! Rois ivres de sang et d'orgueil ! Le peuple souverain s'avance: Tyrans, descendez au cercueil! CHŒUR DE GUERRIERS, La république nous appelle, UNE MÈRE DE FAMILLE. De nos yeux maternels ne craignez pas les larmes, Loin de nous de lâches douleurs! Et nous, UNE JEUNE FILLE. sœurs des héros, nous qui de l'hymenée Ignorons les aimables nœuds, Si pour s'unir un jour à notre destinée, CHŒUR DES FILLES. La république nous appelle, etc. TROIS GUERRIERS. Sur le fer, devant Dieu, nous jurons à nos pères, Nous devons triompher quand vous prenez les A nos épouses, à nos sœurs, armes; C'est aux rois à verser des pleurs! Nous vous avons donné la vie, Elle est votre mère avant nous ! CHOEUR DES MÈRES DE FAMILLE. La république nous appelle, etc. A nos représentants, à nos fils, à nos mères; En tous lieux, dans la nuit profonde, Les Français donneront au monde CHŒUR GÉNÉRAL. La république nous appelle, etc. Great Victory sings as she points us the way, From the North to the South the war trumpet's loud bray Hath sounded the signal of fight. Now tremble ye foemen of France! Kings whom pride and whom carnage un nerve, As the sovereign people advance, CHORUS OF SOLDIERS. Then on, whether triumph or death be our lot None is worthy of living for France who is not A MOTHER SPEAKS. From us shall all motherly weeping be far, Think of us, as the battle ye wage, GENERAL CHORUS. Marie-Joseph Chénier, who produced And drench with the life-blood of king and of many patriotic songs in the revolutionary slave, The brand consecrated by age. So with wounds and with glory you'll come 6 period, was son of the French consul at Constantinople, where he was born in 1762. His first entry into life was as an officer in the army, which he soon abandoned to devote himself to literary pursuits. His first dramatic success was dedicated to the King, Louis XVI., for whose execution he afterwards voted. He became, in the Revolution, a prominent member of the Jacobin party, and is even said to have voted for the execution of his unhappy and gifted brother André, who was guillotined in 1794. But there seems to be no foundation for this atrocious charge, which Marie-Joseph answered in his Épître sur la Calomnie' (1797). In May, 1795, Marie-Joseph turned against the terrorists; in the following August he was made president of the Convention; on the 22nd September he was proclaimed the first of French poets! He became a member of the council of Five Hundred. He held prominent posts under the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire, and died in the year 1811. The best known of his other songs are 'Hymn to Liberty,' 'Song of the 14th July,' 'Ode on the Death of Mirabeau,' 'Song of Victory (one of his best), and the Chant du Retour,' which is but a very weak effort at providing a pendant for the Chant du Départ.' The next song, which demands our attention, is the celebrated Réveil du Peuple,' to which the 9th Thermidor gave rise. It was composed in 1795, and may be regarded. as the Marseillaise of the Muscadins,' having been constantly sung in the theatres and other places during the reaction produced by the tyranny of Robespierre and the Jacobins. LE RÉVEIL DU PEUPLE. Peuple français, peuple de frères, Qu'elle est cette lenteur barbare? Ils ne nous échapperont pas ! Ah! qu'ils périssent, ces infâmes, Apaisez-vous dans vos tombeaux: Le jour tardif de la vengeance Fait enfin pâlir vos bourreaux! Voyez déjà comme ils frémissent! Ils n'osent fuir, les scélérats! Les traces du sang qu'ils vomissent Bientôt décéleraient leurs pas. Oui, nous jurons sur votre tombe, Par notre pays malheureux, De ne faire qu'une hécatombe De ces cannibales affreux. Représentants d'un peuple juste, Fait trembler nos vils assassins, We now pass on to a war song, probably dating a year or two after the peace of Bâle, when France was able to turn her attention towards England. It is impossible to give a translation of it, as its chief merit lies in the wit and pun lurking almost in every line. LA DANSE ANGLAISE. Et vous aimez la danse, Les Français donneront le bal: D'abord, par le pas de Calais, Et comme l'Anglais ne saura Bonaparte lui montrera Les figures Françaises. Allons, mes amis, le grand rond, The mention of Napoleon in this song, while affording a tolerably good hint as to its date, leads us on to the time when his increasing influence and power, and the ambition which stirred him to establish the empire, made it necessary for him, where he could not stifle republican feeling, at least to put down its public expression. The 'Marseillaise' had been ordered to be played in the theatres by a decree of the Directory, issued on the 18th Nivôse of the year IV., that is, on the 8th of January, 1795. This decree named other songs besides the 'Marseillaise,' notably the Veillons au Salut de l'Empire,'* and Chénier's Chant du Départ. It also prohibited the song of Le Réveil du Peuple,' already quoted, which, by the way, must not be confounded with a later Réveil du Peuple,' by Festeau, which dates only from 1848. Till Bonaparte's accession to power the songs we have named had free course, but no sooner was he able to suppress them than they were proscribed. They have always been resuscitated on occasions of insurrection or revolution, and relegated again to obscurity when the political crises which evoked them have passed away; but they were in no respect regarded as national or patriotic songs under the first (or, for that matter, under the second) Empire. In fact a great gap exists from 1795 to 1814 in the list of French national songs. Nor is it to be wondered at. For however much the first Empire may have added to the glory of France, it tended to stifle patriotic songs. For such songs spring out of the fears and doubts, the love and devotion of a nation, and when that nation is great and prosperous, when no dangers menace and no uncertainties oppress its children, as there is no need for patriotism, so there is no audience for patriotic singers, no demand for, and no supply of, patriotic songs. When the first Napoleon fell, when the whole universe seemed leagued together against the nation with whose armies he had trampled victoriously over all Europe, then, as there were *As this song was written in 1791, it is hardly necessary to remark that the word empire referred simply to the nation. hearts to feel for him and for France, so there were singers also to lament his fall. Otherwise, we have nothing of the kind dating from the period of the Empire. This is, however, the proper place to say a word or two of what really became the Napoleonic Anthem, the song sometimes called 'Romance de la Reine Hortense,' but best known by its designation Partant pour la Syrie,' or rather, 'Le Départ pour la Syrie.' It is a mere jingle, as far as the poetry goes, of about the same class as The Troubadour;' and, like 'Vive Henri Quatre' and 'Pauvre Jacques' has not a word of reference to either politics, patriotism, or loyalty; but from the circumstance of Queen Hortense, the step-daughter of the first and mother of the third Napoleon, composing the air to which it was set, it obtained first the vogue of fashion, and, finally, reached the character of a sort of National Anthem. We annex the words (attributed to Laborde), but they do not deserve a translation :— PARTANT POUR LA SYRIE. Le jeune et beau Dunois De benir ses exploits : Il trace sur la pierre Le serment de l'honneur ; Et va suivre à la guerre Le comte, son seigneur. Au noble vœu fidèle, Il dit en combattant: 'Amour à la plus belle, Honneur au plus vaillant.' On lui doit la victoire; 'Vraiment,' dit le seigneur, 'Puisque tu fais ma gloire, Je ferai ton bonheur. De ma fille Isabelle Sois l'époux à l'instant, Car elle est la plus belle Et toi le plus vaillant.' A l'autel de Marie Ils contractent tous deux, Qui seule rend heureux. Honneur au plus vaillant.' Among the song-writers, after the fall of the First Napoleon, Béranger unquestionably holds the first place, not merely because he sang with such affectionate appreciation of the lost glory of the Empire, but because his songs are in themselves essentially poetical. Having, however, spoken at length of Béranger himself, and given numerous specimens of his songs in an earlier volume of this Review,* we now pass on to Émile Debreaux, another of the most popular minstrels of the period from the Restoration to 1830, to help the sale of whose works, on behalf of a young widow and orphans, Béranger wrote the 'Chanson-Prospectus,' which is one of the most feeling and touching of his works. Debreaux died in 1831, at the age of only thirty-three. He was author of a surprising number of songs of all kinds, so many that Béranger could say of them in the 'Chanson-Prospectus,' Ses gais refrains vous égalent en nombre, Fleurs d'acacia qu'éparpillent les vents. Of those specially referring to the lost glories of the Empire we may mention such songs as La Colonne,' 'La Redingote Grise,' Le Mont St. Jean,' 'Sainte-Hélène,' &c. To these we must add his splendid soldier's song 'Fanfan la Tulipe,' which its great length prevents us from putting before our readers. His 'Soldat, t'en souviens tu' is universally known; a copy of it lies before us as we write, in the muddy, trampled, tattered leaves of the repertoire of some Café Chantant, picked up as a piteous relic on the battlefield of Sédan. We must content ourselves with giving but one specimen from Debreaux, as it leads us to another branch of our subject, the songs of the Conscription, but we can only find room for the first four stanzas: LE CONSCRIT. J'avais à peine dix-huit ans Qui m'envoie au bout de la terre La souveraine du Brabant Que le pied de notre princesse : J'avais le regard louche et faux, On me promit monts et merveilles. * See Vol. xlvi. On prétendit faire un César : Que le noble métier des armes ! Bon pain noir, excellente eau claire, Voilà le festin des héros: Avez-vous jamais vu la guerre ? THE CONSCRIPT. When I was a lad of eighteen, With no cares to compel me to think, I had nothing to do but to spend My time in sleep, eating, and drink, It appears that the Queen of Brabant Five score thousand poor lads must contend, So we 'neath the flag were enrolled. Were you ever a soldier, my friend? My eyes were both squinting and crooked, Of my wonderful prospects they talked; Almost out of my senses would send, They vowed should a marshal become.Were you ever a soldier, my friend? O, my lads, what a happy pursuit Is the noble profession of arms! Why, Old Nick, I believe, at the foot Of a church-font would find greater charms. Raw turnips and haricot beans, Prime cold water, black bread without end, Make a banquet for heroes to feast.Were you ever a soldier, my friend? The following, on the same subject, is by the brothers Cogniard : Grand' ville que voilà, Il n'est pas de royaume, Mais quittant leur bannière, Ils s'écriaient tous deux. Il n'est pas de royaume Qui vaille un toit de chaume THE CONSCRIPT MOUNTAINEERS. Two mountaineers marched Full heavy at heart From their sweet home to part. 'O there's never a kingdom Nor realm upon earth To compare with the cottage That sheltered our birth.' All the wealth of the city To change them was vain; At length, from their service Thou hast ne'er been forgot; Which sheltered our birth.' |