Marseillaise, << `mahr` suh LAYZ, >> is the national hymn of France. Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a French army engineer, composed the words and the music in Strasbourg on the night of April 25-26, 1792. He wrote the hymn as a marching song after France declared war on Austria and Prussia. Rouget de Lisle called his hymn “Song of the Rhine Army,” in honor of the garrison to which he belonged.
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The fighting against Austria and Prussia occurred during the French Revolution (1789-1799). Rouget de Lisle supported the monarchy. His song, however, became a rallying cry of the revolutionary leaders and the common people. It became associated with the revolution when soldiers from Marseille sang it in August 1792 as they marched to storm the Tuileries, a palace in Paris where King Louis XVI lived. From this time on, the song was called “The Marseillaise.” It was officially adopted as the national hymn in 1879.
