France Meddling with the Marseillaise

By Kevin Fedarko

If ever there was a song to quicken the blood of the living and raise the spirits of the dead, surely it is France's national anthem, the Marseillaise, whose music once inspired the men of the Midi to boot out invading Prussians, march on Paris -- whistling the tune as they went -- depose the King and fire the imagination of all Europe. That was 200 years ago. Today the song's robust words, which bristle with righteous anger at la tyrannie and enjoin the children of revolutionary France to "drench our fields" with the "tainted blood" of the enemy, are under siege by those who feel the piece smacks of political incorrectness.

The idea of bowdlerizing the ferocious lyrics composed in 1792 by Claude- Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a young captain of the engineers who penned the words on a single, inspired April night, first surfaced three years ago. French human-rights advocate Abbe Pierre called for the song to be altered from "words of hate to a message of love." The abbe's appeal for a kinder, gentler version received only lukewarm support until last month, when the image of an innocent 10-year-old girl warbling "Aux armes, citoyens!" at the Olympic Games struck a note of incongruity that set off a national debate.

The revisionist assault has taken shape under the guidance of the Committee for a Marseillaise of Fraternity, which is petitioning for a version that cuts - out the nastier bits of gristle and gore. Sponsored by such leading lights as First Lady Danielle Mitterrand and soccer hero Michel Platini, the committee points to the research of Armand Thuair, a former fire fighter who conducted an exhaustive survey of 175 national anthems, purporting to prove that "France is the only country in the world to have adopted and preserved a bellicose national anthem."

Oh, really? Try telling that to Denmark, whose anthem graphically commemorates the exploits of King Christian: "His sword was hammering so fast/ Through Gothic helm and brain it passed." Or the Chinese, whose national ditty is a paean to the prospect of "using our flesh and blood to build a new Great Wall." Guatemalans are admonished never to permit "tyrants to spit in thy face." And who could forget the immortal words in the second verse of the Bulgarian national song: "Countless warriors bravely die/ For the people's sacred cause." Such a roster would be incomplete without the heady draught of carnage served up by Maryland's state hymn, dating from the Civil War, which entreats the locals to "Avenge the patriotic gore/ That flecked the streets of Baltimore."

Nevertheless, the Marseillaise revisionists claim that they are particularly offended by Rouget de Lisle's xenophobic reference to standards encrusted in the blood of retreating foreigners -- an image, ironically, that members of the ultra-right National Front must actually find quite appealing. But less ideological traditionalists are now rallying against the Milquetoast meddlers, denouncing the notion of tampering with the song that rang through the torchlit streets of revolutionary France as nothing short of traitorous. Sure, the Marseillaise "is ridiculous," concedes novelist Michel Tournier, "but we should leave it alone because, like old furniture, it gains in value over the years."

With reporting by Bruce Crumley/Paris