#la carmagnole

[otherstuffthatilikerightnow]

La Carmagnole!

[aspiringbelle]

In honor of Bastille Day, here is the cutest version of La Carmagnole!

[fiction-quotes]

But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled movement and a shouting coming along, which filled her with fear. A moment afterwards, and a throng of people came pouring round the corner by the prison wall, in the midst of whom was the wood-sawyer hand in hand with The Vengeance. There could not be fewer than five hundred people, and they were dancing like five thousand demons. There was no other music than their own singing. They danced to the popular Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was like a gnashing of teeth in unison. Men and women danced together, women danced together, men danced together, as hazard had brought them together. At first, they were a mere storm of coarse red caps and coarse woollen rags; but, as they filled the place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, some ghastly apparition of a dance-figure gone raving mad arose among them. They advanced, retreated, struck at one another's hands, clutched at one another's head, spun round alone, caught one another and spun round in pairs, until many of them dropped. While those were down, the rest linked hand in hand, and all spun round together: then the ring broke, and in separate rings of two and four they turned and turned until they all stopped at once, began again, struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed the spin, and all spun round another way. Suddenly they stopped again, paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the width of the public way, and, with their heads low down and their hands high up, swooped screaming off. No fight could have been half so terrible as this dance. It was so emphatically a fallen sport – a something, once innocent, delibered over to all devilry – a healthy pastime changed into a means of angering the blood, bewildering the senses, and steeling the heart. Such grace as was visible in it, made it the uglier, showing how warped and perverted all things good by nature were become. The maidenly bosom bared to this, the pretty almost-child's head thus distracted, the delicate foot mincing in this slough of blood and dirt, were types of the disjoined time.

This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie frightened and bewildered in the doorway of the wood-sawyer's house, the feathery snow fell as quietly and lay as white and soft, as if it had never been.

  —  A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)

[maluron]

ma petite sœur remplace systématiquement le nom du méchant dans les comptines qu'elle chante à son bébé par "macron" (si la comptine en contient un)

je lui demande en plaisantant à demi ce qu'elle fera si jamais dans quelques mois parmi les premiers mots du bambin il y a macron du coup ? elle répond du tac-au-tac : ben lui apprendre "macron explosion !!"

[amateurvoltaire]

Today in “The French Revolution is... odd,” let’s delve into the time when the official government policy for dealing with rebellion in the West was... to send musicians to play revolutionary songs at the brigands.

Not shoes. Not food. Not weapons. Musicians.

Yes, you read that correctly. In the Year II, the Committee of Public Safety decided that musicians should be sent to the armies, particularly in Brittany and the Vendée, to stir the soldiers’ courage during battle.

Prieur (de la Marne), who was on mission in the region, fully embraced this idea, which he found utterly splendid. In a sort of proclamation, he told the musicians that, after observing their behaviour and zeal, he would never forget how they had “combined bravery with talent” and that by playing the Carmagnole for the brave Republicans, they were ready to make the brigands "dance to it." (1)

He went on to say: “Continue to electrify souls with masculine songs (2) —songs that inspire courage and love of the homeland. In the ancient republics, music was a central element of education. The French Republic shall not neglect it, and this art is all the more valuable, as those who spark courage will lead by example in their conduct.”

Source:  Gustave Laurent ,  Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 1ère Année, No. 1 

Note:

(1) For the sake of historical accuracy, there is no evidence—at least none that I can find—of soldiers from the Catholic armies suddenly breaking into dance mid-battle.

(2) Quote translation: "Because, of course, we wouldn’t want those brigands thinking we’re soft, now would we? Rrrrr, we’re MEN!"

[harrietvane]

Prototype for an armoured, articulated deep sea diving suit - 1882 (Alphonse and Théodore Carmagnolle)

Musée de la Marine, Paris 2024

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Is It true that Lebon gathered musicians to play music during the executions in Arras?

The the best source mentioning any such thing I’ve got so far is a letter from Armand Joseph Guffroy to Robespierre dated 18 floréal (May 7 1794), published in the former’s Les secrets de Joseph Lebon et de ses complices, released a few months after the fall of latter:

To relax, and to be consistent, you must this evening, or tomorrow at the latest, have Demeulier and his three companions freed from the Madelonnettes, to know for yourself the truth of what is happening in Arras. Listen and remember; these are Patriots oppressed by a Priest, who has been locked up like a madman, and who, when he could no longer be fanatic and superstitious, became a fanatical patriot through avarice, and caused patriotism and virtue to be hated by his extravagant conduct; or should I say, by his atrocious conduct. Know that, placed on the balcony of the comedy, on the fish market, (today Place de la Revolution), with his nose on the guillotine, he spoke with passion about the execution, and he ordered the tune ça ira to be played (il a fait jouer par la musique l’air ça ira). […]

Guffroy was Lebon’s archenemy, so this information should of course be treated with some caution. We know Guffroy was not an eye witness to this (but also that he did have contacts with people that could have been, such as Antoine Buissart and one Solon), that his goal with the letter is to get Robespierre to recall Lebon, increasing the chances he would lay it on thick in describing what he’s been up to (or could it instead be argued he would try to be as truthful as possible in order to get Robespierre to see how bad it really is?) and that stories about representatives on mission taking pleasure in watching the executions take place hardly is something unique for Lebon, and in some cases can be disproven (such as in the case of Collot d’Herbois, who almost certainly did not personally witness the shootings of condemned in Lyon).

Besides that, I found the following two testimonies from possible eye witnesses, both cited within this great blog post. The two are however written both 1, way after the fact, and 2, by people hostile to Lebon, making it hard to rule out the possibility their stories are embellished or even build on what Guffroy wrote in his report (although in the latter case, the part about the music is a very tiny detail among almost 500 pages, so it still seems a bit strange they would all pick exactly that detail to copy):

When any of his colleagues passed through Arras, [Lebon] always proposed their joining with him in a "partie de Guillotine", and the executions were perpetrated on a small square at Arras, rather than the great one, that he, his wife, and relations, might more commodiously enjoy the spectacle from the balcony of the theatre, where they took their coffee, attended by a band of music, which played while his human butchery lasted. A Residence in France during the years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795 (1798) by Charlotte Biggs.

Penetrating the crowd, which was thronging in the dark and winding streets, I soon reached the fish-market. Then the first object which struck my sight was the guillotine, raising its blood-red boards above the silent multitude. An old man, whom they had just tied to the fatal plank, was the victim; suddenly I heard the sound of trumpets. On a high place which overlooked the orchestra, was seated a man, still young, clad in a Carmagnole of black and blue stripes. This person, whose appearance announced monastic rather than military habits, was leaning carelessly on a cavalry sabre, the large hilt of which represented the Cap of Liberty; a row of pistols ornamented his girdle, and his hat, turned up in the Spanish fashion, was surmounted by a large tri-coloured cockade: I recognised Joseph Lebon. At this moment his mean countenance was animated with a horrid smile; he paused from beating time with his left foot; the trumpets stopped; he made a signal, and the old man was placed under the blade. A sort of clerk, half drunk, then appeared at the side of the " avenger of the people," and read with a hoarse voice a bulletin of the army of the Rhine and Moselle. At each paragraph the orchestra sounded a chord; and when the reading was concluded, the head of the wretched old man was stricken off amidst shouts of "Vive la republique!" repeated by the satellites of the ferocious Lebon. I shall never forget, nor can I adequately depict the impression of this horrible sight. I reached my father's house almost as lifeless as the miserable being whose agony had been so cruelly prolonged; and then I learnt that he was M. de Mongon, the old commandant of the citadel, condemned as an aristocrat. Memoirs of Eugène Vidocq (1829)

[pigeonrobespierre]

Soo today I decided to look further into whathever happened to the I Giacobini screenplay - buckle in, I did my best to include as much info as I could find!!

"I Giacobini" (the jacobins) is an Italian screenplay from 1962 based on Federico Zardi's homonymous drama and it is, as of today, a lost media.

The cause for the disappearance of the screenplay from the RAI (Italian national public broadcasting company) archives is either reconduced to the lack of care for the preservation of medias at the time or to the theory which believes the cause to be due to political circumstances.

According to Wikipedia (eh):

...while Italy was in the hands of the Democrazia Cristiana, RAI for the first time broadcast to the public a screenplay «practically entirely aligned with the left and in which Robespierre doesn't come off as a bloody monster but rather like a Che Guevara of reason»

The Democrazia Cristiana or DC (Christian Democracy) was a centrist christian democratic political party in Italy.

The screenplay became largely appreciated by the public, as well as receiving praises from Palmiro Togliatti, exponent of the PCI (Italian communist party) - which happens to be one of the DC 's political opponents at the time.

(source)

Palmiro Togliatti on "Rinascita" wrote that television was bringing a change, since «for the first time it brought a representation of the French revolution inside Italian households»

I went ahead and looked through the archives of Rinascita but found this.

Here I found Togliatti's comment on the screenplay - the below image is a section of it:

The screenplay I Giacobini can be considered an important event of national culture. [...] What matters is that for some weeks a few billions of Italians, have seen and have had in front of their minds a revolution, have been brought to think about about it and to discuss it, seeing it as a political, social and human conflict.

It's then necessary to understand the political contexts of the time both within and outside of Italy:

(source)

...In 1962, under the threat of the cold war, a few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, a screenplay remarked positively by the leader of a communist party in a NATO country could've raised any kind of reaction.

Thus, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the screenplay is believed to be caused by some archivist involved with the democristian party.

While this is widely believed to be the reasoning behind it there's not much clear evidence and it's likely impossible to investigate since so much time has passed.

About the screenplay: it was broadcast in 6 episodes, of 90 minutes each, between 11th March - 15th April of 1962 (with a rerun in 1963 after which the tapes disappeared).

It originally featured La Marseillaise, La Carmagnole and Ça ira as well as 4 songs produced for the theater play by Gino Negri.

Audio Recording

In 2012 a man came forward with a (illegally) recorded copy of the audio from the screenplay and sent it over to the Rai archives. The studio managed to recover and digitalize the audios of the six episodes - sadly the video recording is still missing.

Funnily enough, the archive page on which the audios were supposedly made public is gone as of today - but I have found YouTube uploads here: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Also here's a doc that wast broadcast on Italian television on the 11th March of 2012, in honor of the 50 years since the first run of the screenplay - (it's in Italian, if anyone's interested I'll gladly sub it/provide a translation)

In short - bless that viewer for pirating the audio in 1962 and lots of hate to whoever lost the tapes..

Maybe I Giacobini was the friends we made along the way 🍊

[transrevolutions]

"ok so this one goes out to all the 90s kids" *first beats of la carmagnole start playing*

[major-knighton]

I'm french and I have to say I have no idea what any of these nursery rhymes could be.

In regards to this post : https://www.tumblr.com/major-knighton/743129272535924736/i-love-how-french-nursery-rhymes-are-french?source=share

French Revolution songs : Le bon roi Dagobert is actually about Louis XVI, the use of Dagobert was to avoid censorship. Dansons la capucine is a variation of La Carmagnole, and Il pleut bergère was written by revolutionary deputy and dantonist Fabre d'Églantine

Strange birds : I was thinking of the rossignol in Gentils coquelicots that tells the girls that men ain't shit, but the bird in En passant près d'un petit bois evokes real terror in the Narrator. And ig you can count the rossignol in À la claire fontaine although that's mostly the human projecting her mood on the bird

Specific location : various can apply, was thinking of Le pont d'Avignon and Le palais royal

The protagonists die : Ne pleure pas Jeannette ends on the titular character getting hanged with her lover, I'm like 90% sure Compère Guilleri dies too

Mary ex machina : Il était un petit navire is about a young matelot nearly being killed and eaten by his crewmates, L'enfant au tambour is technically saved by angels but ehhh, and an obscure song called La fille changée en cane is about a girl avoiding being assaulted by a troupe of soldiers by praying Mary changes her into a duck. Which she does.

A whole lot of actually wholesome ones, including Frère Jacques, which I've seen differently ever since learning that the matine bells are actually rung at 3am. You bet I'd be sleeping too if some punk ass abbot tried to get me to go make noise at that time

Give us more candy : explicitly the moral of Dame Tartine and Ah vous dirai-je Maman

Peasant girl marries the prince : Y avait dix filles dans un pré and En passant par la Lorraine, but I'm pretty sure there are more

[saax2]

1 maggio (on May 1st)

Il Quarto Stato, 1898-1901 (Galleria di Arte Moderna, Milano) | Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo (1868-1907, Italia)

‘La Carmagnole’, patriotic song of the French Revolution, from 'Le Chambard Socialiste’, 1894 | Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923, Switzerland)

Lunch atop a skyscraper, New York City, 1932 | ph., Charles C. Ebbets, Thomas Kelley or William Leftwich 

Le spigolatrici, 1857 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) | Jean-François Millet (1814-1875, France)

Raboteurs de parquet (The floor scrapers), 1875 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) | Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894, France)

Le Donne dei zolfatari (The miners' women in the sulfur mines), 1953 | Renato Guttuso (1911-1987, Italia)

[werewolfetone]

I just realised, I know a great many songs about 1798, but can hardly think of any from the time itself. Do you happen to know any songs sung by the rebels at the time (I may or may not need this for a writing project haha)? Your help would be much appreciated!

Here's a whole book of specifically united irish ones from the time, that the united irishmen put out specifically to encourage people to sing them, & apart from those some french revolutionary songs would have been sung as well, especially in the months/years leading up to the rebellion. for those the 2 songs I've seen mentioned the most are ça ira (the singing of which caused the belfast military riot of 1793! "fun" fact) and la marseillaise, but it's definitely not inconceivable that people were also singing other popular ones like la carmagnole and so on. these are nearly (?) all instrumental but you might also have a look at edward bunting's 1796 collection of allegedly horribly mangled irish harp music for another collection of folk songs people might have been singing/playing at the time :)

[pommunist]

Oui effectivement la prise de la Bastille semble être un meilleur but. Du coup on est plus partis sur un Ca ira ou une Carmagnole niveau chant de guerre? J'aime bien le "les aristocrates à la lanterne" mais la Carmagnole c'est plus dansant, du coup j'imagine qu'une armée de français qui arrive en la chantant c'est plus menaçant.

on peut aussi moderniser le truc avec un remix qsmp du macron explosion

[usergreenpixel]

🎶Hiiii! Tell me of 5 songs you'd currently recommend, then send this to 5 mutuals :D🎶

1. Eternal Flame - The Bangles

2. A Ghost in the Trenches - Sabaton

3. Eye of the Tiger - Survivor

4. La Carmagnole

5. Friends Will Be Friends - Queen

[weimarhaus]

Max Ernst (German, 1912-1988) La Carmagnole de L'amour (The Carmagnole of Love), 1926. Oil/canvas, 101x73,5 cm. The Kunstsammlung Nordhein-Westfalen.

[trunk--slamchest]

Well when you said you were a classical Liberal, I thought you meant a "Jacobin" Liberal. So the guillotine in the yard and having the local PTA sing La Carmagnole while we killed the local chief of police was part of the bargain?

What do you mean "libertarian", that's not the same thing!