Carmagnole

Plate with the text of the beginning of the song

"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]

  1. ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Carmagnole" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 354–355.
  2. ^ Gilchrist J., and W.J. Murray: "The Press in the French Revolution". St. Martin's Press, 1971.
  3. ^ Jennifer Harris, "The Red Cap of Liberty: A Study of Dress Worn by French Revolutionary Partisans 1789-94" Eighteenth-Century Studies 14.3 (Spring 1981:283-312) p. 286
  4. ^ "'The Carmagnole.' Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Exploring the French Revolution." George Mason University. 12 October 2007. http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/browse/songs/# Archived 2007-10-12 at the Wayback Machine