"La Carmagnole" is the title of a French song created and made popular during the French Revolution, accompanied by a wild dance of the same name that may have also been brought into France by the Piedmontese.[1] It was first sung in August 1792 and was successively added to during the revolutionary events of 1830, 1848, 1863–64, and 1882-83. The authors are not known.[2] The title refers to the short jacket worn by working-class militant sans-culottes,[3] adopted from the Piedmontese peasant costume named for the town of Carmagnola.[1]
It sarcastically sings of the triumphs over the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette (Madame Veto), King Louis XVI (Monsieur Veto), and the French monarchists in general.[4]
History
Carmagnole, after an item on display at the Musée de l'Armée, Paris.
There are varied accounts of the song and where it was sung. It was mainly a rallying cry or entertainment for revolutionaries. It was also used to insult opponents of the French Revolution. A popular punishment was to make anti-revolutionaries "sing and dance the Carmagnole", which could be done to marquises, dames, princes, monks, bishops, archbishops, cardinals and the like.[5] La Carmagnole has also been documented as a battle cry. At the battle of Jemappes on 6 November 1792 it is written that, "the sans-culottes in the army rushed the enemy singing "La Marseillaise" and "La Carmagnole." It was a great republican victory, and all of Belgium fell to the revolutionary armies."[6]
When not sung during an actual battle, the Carmagnole was often sung after political or military victories. One such event occurred after the storming of the Tuileries Palace on the night of August 9–10, 1792. The radical people of Paris asserted their power by forcing the king to flee to the nearby National Assembly. After storming the palace and massacring the King's personal Swiss Guard, the mob of Paris was "drunk with blood, danced and sang the Carmagnole to celebrate the victory."[7] The song was also more generally associated with grassroots popular displays, such as festivals or the planting of liberty trees. It was common to include public singing at these symbolic events, and over the course of the Revolution "some 60,000 liberty trees were planted" [8] giving the people many opportunities to sing.
Importance
Song was a very important means of expression in France during the Revolution. The Marseillaise, which has since become the French National Anthem, was written during this period. It has been written that, "Frenchmen took pride in their habit of singing and regarded it as one source of their success." [citation needed] In France, heroism was linked to gaiety. In the preface to the Chansonnier de la République there are questions that the French Republic poses to the world: "What will the ferocious reactionaries, who accuse France of unity, say when they see them equal to the heroes of antiquity in singing the Carmagnole? What will they say when they hear on the battlefields of the republicans these patriotic refrains, which precede and follow the most bloody combats?" [9] La Carmagnole, and revolutionary song in general, was viewed as an important part of the new French Republic, and of being a Frenchman. La Carmagnole was particularly popular because, like the song Ah! ça ira ("It'll do", "Everything will be OK"), it contained simple lyrics that illiterate people could easily learn and understand, and therefore participate in singing.[10]
In the Greek island of Samos, then under Ottoman rule, the Carmagnole gave its name to the political faction of the Karmanioloi, who, inspired by the French Revolution's liberal and democratic ideals, opposed the traditional, reactionary land-holding notables (nicknamed Kallikantzaroi). The struggle of the two parties dominated the political affairs of the island in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, when the Karmanioloi faction led Samos to join the uprising.[13]
^Gilchrist J., and W.J. Murray: "The Press in the French Revolution". St. Martin's Press, 1971.
^Jennifer Harris, "The Red Cap of Liberty: A Study of Dress Worn by French Revolutionary Partisans 1789-94" Eighteenth-Century Studies14.3 (Spring 1981:283-312) p. 286
^Gilchrist J., and W.J. Murray: "The Press in the French Revolution" 312-323, St. Martin's Press, 1971
^Jordan, David P: "The King's Trial: The French Revolution vs. Louis XVI", 64, University of California Press, 1979.
^Padover, Saul:The Life and Death of Louis XVI, 277-278. Alvin Redman Limited, London, 1965. Yet the text would imply that it was written after the famous cannonade at the Battle of Valmy on September 20, 1792.
^Jones, Colin: "The Great Nation: France From Louis XV to Napoleon, 1715-1799", 530. Penguin Press, London, 2002.
^Rogers, Cornwell: The Spirit of the Revolution in 1789, 17. Princeton University Press, 1949.
^Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862), Part One, Book II, Chapter 5, trans. by Norman Denny.
^Dos Passos, John (2000). The 42nd Parallel. Boston: Mariner Books. p. 101. ISBN978-0-618-05681-1.
^Landros Christos; Kamara Afroditi; Dawson Maria-Dimitra; Spiropoulou Vaso (10 July 2005). "Samos: 2.3. Ottoman rule". Cultural Portal of the Aegean Archipelago. Foundation of the Hellenic World. Archived from the original on 22 May 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
