Revolutions
Song of the Marseillaise of the Federation of 10 August, Year II
One of many hymns that was composed by rhyming new lyrics to the wildly popular tune of the "Marseillaise," this song was performed at a festival celebrating the first anniversary of the republican revolution of August 10.
Song for the Festival of Old Age
This song was composed for one of the many Directorial festivals that were not overtly political. Several, like the festival for which this song was composed, celebrated important moments in the life cycle.
Patriotic Song on the Unveiling of the Busts of Marat and Le Pelletier (1793)
This song illustrates the fluid boundary between "high" and "popular" musical forms. Althought these lyrics were set to a new composition by Joseph Gossec, they could also be sung to a tune already familiar to many French men and women.
Oh Richard, Oh, My King!
This aria from the Gretry opera, Richard the Lion–Hearted, was adopted by royalists during the early years of the French Revolution. The song’s accusation that the king had been abandoned by all but his most devoted followers made it a suitable counter–revolutionary anthem.
It’ll Be Okay
Popular during the early years of the French Revolution, this song’s lively tune and repetitive chorus expressed revolutionaries’ hopefulness about the future. Singers manipulated its malleable lyrics to address a broad range of topical issues.
Hymn of 9 Thermidor
This hymn commemorates the overthrow of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety by the men of the National Convention during the French Revolution. It had its debut performance on the first anniversary of that event (27 July 1795).
Hymn of 21 January
With lyrics drawn from a Republican Ode composed by the revolutionary poet Lebrun in 1793, this hymn commemorates the execution of France's Louis XVI.
Hymn for the Festival of Marriage
Although festivals drew much smaller audiences during the final years of the Revolution, the government continued to celebrate them. Now, however, they tended to commemorate apolitical events: thus a festival, and hymn, devoted to the subject of marriage.
Drowning in the Loire by Order of the Fierce Carrier
On 6–7 December 1793, Jean–Baptiste Carrier, a deputy sent by the Convention to suppress the insurrection at Nantes, accepted, if he did not in fact welcome, a measure proposed by the local Revolutionary Tribunal to fill seven boats with an estimated 200–300 prisoners (not all of them yet convict
Fusillades at Lyon, Ordered by Collot–D’Herbois
Lyon’s rebellion against the central government in September 1793 had terrible repercussions that seemed only to worsen with the initiation of collective trials and immediate executions by firing squad.