Brewer's: Marseillaise

(3 syl.). The grand song of the French Revolution. Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, an artillery officer in garrison at Strasbourg, composed both the words and the $$$ for Dietrich mayor of the town. On July 30th, 1792, the Marseillaise volunteers, invited by Barbaroux at the instance of Madame Roland, marched to Paris singing the favourite song; and the Parisians, enchanted with it, called it the Hymne des Marseillais. (Rouget born 1760, died 1835.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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