The French Revolution of 1789 was a cultural watershed. What was left of the old tradition of Lully and Rameau was finally swept away, to be rediscovered only in the twentieth century. The Gluckian school and "opéra comique" survived, but they immediately began to reflect the turbulent events around them. Established composers such as Grétry and Dalayrac were drafted in to write patriotic propaganda pieces for the new regime. A typical example is Gossec's "Le triomphe de la République" (1793) which celebrated the crucial Battle of Valmy the previous year. A new generation of composers appeared, led by Étienne Méhul and the Italian-born Luigi Cherubini. They applied Gluck's principles to "opéra comique", giving the genre a new dramatic seriousness and musical sophistication. The stormy passions of Méhul's operas of the 1790s, such as "Stratonice" and "Ariodant", earned their composer the title of the first musical Romantic. Cherubini's works too held a mirror to the times. "Lodoiska" was a "rescue opera" set in Poland, in which the imprisoned heroine is freed and her oppressor overthrown. Cherubini's masterpiece, "Médée" (1797), reflected the bloodshed of the Revolution only too successfully: it was always more popular abroad than in France. The lighter "Les deux journées" of 1800 was part of a new mood of reconciliation in the country.