ROUGET DE LISLE CLAUDE JOSEPH: (1760-1836) French Army Officer of the French Revolutionary Wars who wrote the words ...

ROUGET DE LISLE CLAUDE JOSEPH: (1760-1836) French Army Officer of the French Revolutionary Wars who wrote the words and music of the French National Anthem La Marseillaise.
A.L.S., J. Rouget de Lisle, one page, 8vo, n.p., n.d. ('le Samedi matin'), to a gentleman [M. Pleyel], in French. Rouget de Lisle intriguingly writes 'In exchange for the most indiscreet demand that I made of you yesterday allow me to give you a piece of useless advice…you spoke the other day of your liaisons with Mr. Garnery. If you have, or will be, in the position of entering into some interesting relationships with him, be on your guard. We see that the position is nothing less that certain… he is himself being watched…' A few minor tears to the left edge, only very slightly affecting a few words of text, but not the signature. Strengthened to the verso, otherwise VGIgnace Pleyel (1757-1831) Austrian-born French Composer. Pleyel had been friends with Rouget de Lisle having worked together on Pleyel's Hymne à la liberté (1791), to which Rouget de Lisle had written the libretto. With the onset of the Reign of Terror in 1793 and 1794, life in France became dangerous for many. Pleyel was brought before the Committee of Public Safety a total of seven times due to the following: his foreign status, his recent purchase of a château, and his ties with the Strasbourg Cathedral. He was subsequently labeled a Royalist collaborator. The outcome of the Committee's attentions could easily have been imprisonment or even execution. With prudent opportunism, Pleyel preserved his future by writing compositions in honor of the new republic.La Marseillaise is widely regarded as one of the best and most instantly recognisable National Anthems ever composed. Written in 1792 by Rouget De Lisle in Strasbourg following France's declaration of war against Austria, the revolutionary song was originally entitled Chant de guerre pour l'Armee du Rhin ('War Song for the Rhine Army'). An anthem to freedom and a patriotic call to mobilise all citizens and an exhortation to fight against tyranny and foreign invasion, the French National Convention adopted it as the Republic's anthem in 1795. The anthem acquired its nickname after being sung in Paris by volunteers from Marseille marching on the capital. The first example of the 'European march' anthemic style, La Marseillaise's evocative melody and lyrics have led to its widespread use as a song of revolution and its incorporation into many pieces of classical and popular music.