And Paris presently gained, from some unknown source, another tune, almost equally effective and with words equally to the point. It was the _Carmagnole_, with its grim refrain, _Vive le son du canon_ (‘Long live the sound of the cannon’). This was sung daily in what is now the beautiful _Place de la Concorde_, where, during the ‘Reign of Terror,’ scores of aristocrats and political suspects were executed daily. The mob liked to see the blood flow and, joining hands in a great circle, would bellow this very singable tune and its sentiments to the just Heavens. But this song was overshadowed in popularity by another--the famous _Marseillaise_, which has been called, perhaps justly, the greatest of all songs. Rouget de Lisle, a military engineer and dilettante musician, wrote the poem and the melody one night in Strassburg, early in 1792, for the troops to sing at the review the next day. He called it _Chant de Guerre_. The song made its way to Marseilles and was taken up by the body of Republican volunteers on their forced march to Paris in July, 1792. It instantly spread in the capital, being known as _le Chant des Marseillais_. The Marseillians, with this song on their lips, were among the foremost in the storming of the Tuileries a few days later, when the king finally became the helpless prisoner of the people. Thenceforth it accompanied the Republican armies on their victorious marches through Europe. It is part of the irony of such things that de Lisle, who wrote the great Republican song of the Revolution, was born a royalist and remained one till his death. Patriotic songs, during the revolutionary period, appeared in great abundance, but the great majority of them, as always at such times, were vapid and artistically insignificant. From among them, however, have remained two or three of exceptional quality. One is Gossec’s ‘Hymn to the Supreme Being,’ designed as a religious song which an anti-ecclesiastical government could use without inconsistency, and Méhul’s noble _Chant du départ_, written to be sung at the departure of the armies, and still so used. This song, which was Napoleon’s favorite (he forbade the _Marseillaise_ as too violent), represented the pure Republican element of the Revolution, as opposed to the more violent communistic elements. In its elevation of style, in its perfect fitness of words and music, it remains one of the greatest patriotic hymns of the world. VII