The Marseillaise
Rouget de l’Isle wrote only six of the seven verses of the “Marseillaise,” the last being the work of the Abbé Antoine Pessonneaux, in a moment of patriotic ecstacy. In its completed form the hymn was first sung at the opera in Paris, the members of the Convention being present. After the verses of Rouget de l’Isle had been sung a group of children appeared on the stage and gave the last verse, beginning “Nous entrerons dans la carrière,” which was wildly applauded. Not long after this the Abbé came near being guillotined at Lyons. One of the historians relates the event as follows: “The committee met in the Town Hall, which resembled a ‘funeral chapel,’ and sat round a table covered with black cloth. There was the president, who had three judges on each side of him. They all wore a little silver hatchet round the neck,—terrible emblem of their functions. There was a stool for the prisoner, and behind this a rank of armed soldiers awaiting the sign which decided the fate of the accused. If the judges spread out their hands on the black cloth, that signified acquittal; if they raised their hands to their foreheads, that meant that the prisoner was to be shot; if they touched the silver hatchet, he was to be guillotined. Few questions were asked, and the fate of the accused was generally known beforehand. The sentence of the court was immediately executed amid cries of anguish, despair, ‘Vive la République,’ and the howling of the ‘Marseillaise.’ A citizen, pale, but calm, in presence of almost certain death, had just been brought before the tribunal. His crime was flagrant; he was a priest. The president asked, ‘Who art thou?’ The accused drew himself proudly up, and said, ‘I am the Abbé Pesonneaux, author of the last stanza of the ‘Marseillaise.’’ There was a good deal of commotion in the court, and after some hesitation the judges stretched their hands out on the black cloth, which was the pollice verso of the Republic. Without saluting or thanking, the Abbé slowly withdrew. Forty years afterwards the Government of Louis Philippe gave Rouget de l’Isle a pension of £4 a month, and the Abbé Pessonneaux had some idea of applying also for aid, but he changed his mind, and died peacefully in Dauphiny in 1835.”