Le Chant des Girondins ("The Song of the Girondists") was the national anthem of the French Second Republic, written for the drama Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge by the writer Alexandre Dumas with Auguste Maquet. It replaced the previous La Parisienne in 1848. The lines of the refrain were borrowed from Roland à Roncevaux, a song written in Strasbourg by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, the author of La Marseillaise, the current French national anthem. The music was composed by Alphonse Varney. It was replaced with Partant pour la Syrie in 1852.
Lyrics[]
French original[]
Par la voix du canon d’alarmes
La France appelle ses enfants,
– Allons dit le soldat, aux armes !
C’est ma mère, je la défends.
Refrain :
Mourir pour la Patrie
Mourir pour la Patrie
C’est le sort le plus beau, le plus digne d’envie
C’est le sort le plus beau, le plus digne d’envie
Nous, amis, qui loin des batailles
Succombons dans l’obscurité,
Vouons du moins nos funérailles
A la France, à la liberté.
Refrain
Frères, pour une cause sainte,
Quand chacun de nous est martyr,
Ne proférons pas une plainte,
La France, un jour doit nous bénir.
Refrain
Du Créateur de la nature,
Bénissons encore la bonté,
Nous plaindre serait une injure,
Nous mourons pour la liberté.
Refrain
English translation[]
- By the voice of the alarm gun
- France calls her children,
- – "Come," said the soldier, to arms!
- It's my mother, I defend her.
- Refrain:
- Dying for the Fatherland
- Dying for the Fatherland
- It's the most beautiful, most desirable fate
- It's the most beautiful, most desirable fate
- Refrain:
- We, friends, who far from battles
- Succumbing in the darkness,
- Let us at least take our funeral
- To France, to freedom.
- Refrain
- Brothers, for a holy cause,
- When each of us is martyred,
- Make not a complaint,
- France, one day ought to bless us.
- Refrain
- From the Creator of Nature,
- Let us still bless the goodness,
- Complaining would be an insult,
- We die for freedom.
- Refrain