Rouget de Lisle's authorship of the music has been often contested, but it is proven by the conclusive evidence contained in the pamphlet on the subject, by his nephew, published in Paris, in 1865. Schumann has used the "Marseillaise" in the overture to "Hermann and Dorothea," and also in his song of the "Two Grenadiers." Its author, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, was born at Montaigu, Lous-le-Saulnier, in 1760. Entering the school of Royal Engineers at Mezieres in 1782, in 1789 he was a second lieutenant and quartered at Besancon. Here, a few days after the fall of the Bastille, on July 14th, he wrote his first patriotic song to the tune of a favourite air. The next year found him at Strasburg, where his "Hymn to Liberty," set to music by Pleyel, was sung at the fete of September 25, 1791. One of his pieces, "Bayard en Bresse," produced at Paris in 1791, was not successful. Being the son of royalist parents and one of the constitutional party, Rouget de Lisle refused to take the oath to the constitution abolishing the crown, and was therefore cashiered, denounced, and imprisoned, not escaping until after the fall of Robespierre. It is told that as he fled through a pass of the Alps he heard his own song. "'What is the name of that hymn?' he asked his guide. 'The Marseillaise,' was the peasant's reply. It was then that he learned the name of his own work. He was pursued by the enthusiasm which he had scattered behind him, and escaped death with difficulty. The weapon recoiled against the hand which had forged it; the Revolution in its madness no longer recognised its own voice." De Lisle afterward reentered the army, made the campaign of La Vendee under Hoche, was wounded, and at length, under the consulate, returned to private life at Montaigu. Poor and alone, he remained there until the second Restoration, when, his brother having sold the little family property, he came to Paris. Here he was unfortunate and would have starved but for a small pension granted by Louis XVIII., and continued by Louis Philippe, and for the care of his friends, the poet Beranger and the sculptor David d'Angers, and especially M. and Madame Voiart. At the house of the Voiarts in Choisy-le-Roi, Rouget de Lisle died in 1836. His other works include a volume of "Essais en vers et en prose," issued in 1797, "Cinquante Chants Francais" (1825), and "Macbeth," a lyrical tragedy (1827). He also wrote a song called "Roland at Roncesvalles," and a "Hymn to the Setting Sun." Two statues, if no more, have been erected to him in France,--one at Lous-le-Saulnier, from the hand of Bartholdi, and another at Choisy-le-Roi.