246
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. SEPT. 21, 1901.
when M. Albert Legrand, President of the
Commission of Archives at St. Omer, gave
his testimony, Amedee Rouget de lisle
suddenly dropped his lawsuit.
Let it be observed, too, that Castil Blaze declared that he had received the testimony as to a German canticle with a chorus refrain, which became the basis of the ' Mar- seillaise' tune, having been sung in 1782 in the salon of Madame de Montesson, from two eye and ear witnesses namely, from Deslauriers, editor of the operas of Gluck, and from Imbault, the violinist. It is im- possible in the restricted space of this periodical to go into all the ins and outs of this affair. But how can it be said that Fetis senior, who personally knew Rouget, and who had for a long time believed him to be the author of the tune, was prejudiced against all things French 1 And are Legrand, Vervoitte, Arthur Loth, and all the other Frenchmen who have contended against Rouget's authorship, to be held prejudiced against all things French ?
I write this away from London, and quite uncertain as to the time of my going back. It will therefore be impossible for me to see MR. ADAIR FITZGERALD'S book for some time to come. But when he writes, " MR. KARL BLIND says he has been through a mass of manuscripts dealing with the origin and supposed origin of this song," I may be allowed to observe that I had not said that What I said in ' N. & Q.' was that I had 'gone through all this literature" As to Grisons's 'Esther,' douard Fetis junior had written that one of the parts of that oratorio is the 'Marseillaise' tune; that, though Esther has no date, the author is described there as Musical Director of the Cathedral : that the Historical and Geographical Alma- nac of Artois for 1784' mentions the fact i r !?, ons havin S in that same year ceased to hold that office; and that consequently his oratorio is anterior to 1784.
Rouget was not with "the troops on march in such a way that a hand-press had to be used, as MR. JULIAN MARSHALL suggests Kouget had been for some time in garrison as captain of Engineers at Hiiningen. As such he was described by the Chronique de Paris in August, 1792, in which only the words of the 'Marseillaise ' are attributed to him. In the Pans Petites Affiches of October Gossec is mentioned as the " arrangeur de la Marseillaise.' So also in the Momteur of 1792 At the time of the Convention and of the Directory little sheets were sold at Paris containing the 'Marseillaise,' one of which sheets M. Fetis senior had seen. In it the
words of the song are stated to be from the
citizen Rouget de 1'Isle ; the music by Navoi-
gille, or Navogille, as the name is sometimes
given. No reclamation was made by Rouget
against this at the time, nor afterwards so
Fetis wrote.
Enough has been said to show the com- plicated character of this question. All this, and a great deal more into which I cannot enter here, is quite irrespective of what Mr. Hamma, the organist of Meersburg, stated ; on which subject investigations may still be continued, as he gave the rubric in the musical library of the Town's Church.
It was in 1861 that Harnma publicly did so. He remained uncontradicted. Only some eighteen or nineteen years afterwards Chou-
Juet's contradiction appeared, i.e., in 1879-80. n the meantime, as I have just been informed by Dr. Hermann Levinger, a grand-ducal Amtmann, who made personal inquiries a few days ago : " Die Musikalien der Kirche in Meersburg sind, wie mir der alte Chor- Regent Schreiber dort erzahlte, nach und nach verschwunden." This disappearance of old music, and consequently of practical testimony at Meersburg, is unfortunate. But, as I said before, it does not affect the case itself, for a mass of French testimony cannot be set aside.
The great facts remain that the opinion of so many French writers who have gone deeply into the subject, even after Chouquet's article, is adverse to Rouget's original author- ship of the tune; that he remained silent when he ought to have spoken; and that Amedee Rouget de 1'Isle dropped his lawsuit as soon as the competent witnesses came forward who had seen the oratorio at St. Omer. KARL BLIND.
In ' The Diary of a Citizen of Paris during the Terror,' by Edmond Eire', the diarist relates that on 3 October, 1792, he visited the Academie Royale de Musique to see the performance of ' The Offering to Liberty,' a religious scene based upon * The Song of the Marseillais,' which he describes as being irresistible and tremendous, and he trusts that Gossec, the composer of the 'Marseillaise' reproduced in the opera, will be acquitted by the revolutionists of a suspicion of infidelity to republican principles. JOHN HEBB.
"LANSPiSADOEs"(9 th S. viii. 105, 212). The
word in the connexion referred to certainly
means lance-corporals. It is derived from
lancia spezzata. In ' The Arte of Warre,' &c.,
by William Garrard, corrected and finished
by Capt. Hichcock (London, 1591), it is thus
i
