St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1892-08-25

THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE MAR
SEILL4ISE.O

Repu bic, had been caught SOL
emnizing a religious marriage, and
that he was to be brought before the
Revolutionary tribunal that same
afternoon Though you may not
think so, merely going by what you
read, the appearance OF priest De-
fore the Tribunal always aroused
more than common interest, nor
have you any idea what more than
common interest meant in those
days. A priest, to the Revolution
aries and to the Terrorists, whom they
might hector and bully as they liked,
was not an ordinary being. They
looked upon him either as something
better than a man or worse than a
devil They had thrown the reli-
gious compass they had brought
from home with them overheard.
and they had not the philosophical
one to take its place. You may
work out the thing for yourself; at
any rate, the place was crammed to
suffocation when we arrived at the
Hotel de Vile. 1t was large room,
at the upper end of which stood an
oblong table covered with a black
cloth. Seated around it were seven
selt-constitutedj judges. Besides their
tricolor scarfs round their waists
they wore, suspended by a ribbon
from their necks, a small silver axe.
AS a rule there was very little
speechifying. La mort sans phrase, J"
which had become the fashion since
Louis XVI's execution, was strictly
adhered.to. Half-a-dozen prisoners
were brought in and taken away
without arousing the slightest eX-
element, either in the way of COM
miseration or hatred. After having
listened, the judges either extended
their hands on the table or put them
to their foreheads. The first move
nent meant acquittal and liberation,
the second death; not always by the
guillotine though, for the instru-
ment was not perfect as yet, and did
not work sufficiently quick to please
them. All at once the priest was
brought in, and dead silence pre-
vailed. He was not very old man,
though his hair was snow white.
who art thou ?" asked the presi-
dent.
The prisoner drew himself up to
his full height. Il am the Able
PessoneauX, a former tutor of the
college at Vienne, and the author Of
the last strophe of the an arseil-
laise,' " he said quietly.
| cannot convey to you the i'm
preston produced by those simple
words. The silence became positive
ly oppressive; you could hear the
people breathe. The president did
not say another word; the priests
reply had apparently stunned him
also; he merely turned round to his
fellow judges. Soldiers and gaolers
stood as if turned into stone; every
eye was directed towards the table,
watching for the movement of the
Judges hands. Slowly and deliber-
ately they stretched them forth, and
then deafening cheer ran through |
the room. The Able Pessoneaux
owed his life to his strophe, for,
though his story was not questioned
then, it was proved true in every
particular. On their way to Paris |
to be present at the taking of the
Tuilleries on August 10, the Mar
seillaise had stopped at Vienne to
celebrate the Fete of the Federation.
On the eve of their arrival the Able
had composed the
strophe, and but for his seizure the
authorship would have always re-
NAMED matter Of conjecture, for
Rouget de PIsle would have never
mad the honesty to acknowledge it.
Our Englishman insists that Alex
andre Boucher, viollnist of the
period, wrote. the whole OF the music
Of the "Marseillaise." Boucher had |
oeen requested to write a march for
his regiment by a colonel who was
about to leave Marseillaise the next
prisoner in the fortress of St. Jean,
heard the march from his cell, and at
he instance of the gaoler adapted to
t the words of the patriotic hymn
ne was then writing. Here is the Sc
luel of the story u give it," says
our author, ''in the very words of
Boucher himself, as he told it to a
Paris journalist whom knew WELL"
A good many years afterwards l
was seated next to Rouget de lIsle
at a dinner-party IN Paris. We had |
never met before, and, as you may
easily imagine, | was rather interest
I'd in the gentleman, whom, with |
MANY others at the same board, l |
,omplinented on his production;
only 1 confined myself to compli
menting him on his poem. You
don't say a word about the music
ne replied; and yet, being cele-
DRAFTED musician, that ought to in
terest you. Do you not like it?'
Very much indeed" I said, in a
significant tone. We'll,
let me be frank with you. The music
s not mine. 1t was that of march |
which came, heaven knows whence,
and which they kept on playing at
during the Terror, when l
was a prisoner at the fortress of St.