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240

frequently thereafter.

ROUGET DE L'ISLE.

1760-1836.

Though he wrote much in both prose and verse, nothing of his lives except the Marseillaise, which has become the national song of France. He composed both words and music in the night of April 25, 1792, while he was an officer of engineers at Strassburg. The last stanza vas added later by another hand. The name, la Marseillaise, comes from the fact that it was introduced to Paris by the troops from Marseilles.

Works: Essais en vers et en prose, 1796.

For reference: J. Tiersot, Rouget de l'Isle, son oeuvre, sa vie, 1892.

32. LA MARSEILLAISE. 6. Beuillé, François-Claude Amour, marquis de (1739-1800), a devoted royalist, who planned the flight of Louis XVI. When the king was captured at Varennes he fled to England, where he died.

MARIE-ANDRÉ CHÉNIER.

1762-1794.

The most genuine poet of the eighteenth century. Born at Constantinople of a Greek mother, he knew Greek early and fed himself on the Greek poets, imbibing something of their spirit. His elegies, idyls, and odes are not mere repetitions of the conventional commonplaces, but new, original, and vigorous in idea and expression. He anticipated the Romanticists in breaking over the received rules of versification and in giving greater flexibility and variety to the Alexandrine line.

Works : _Poésies_, first published by H. de Latouche, 1819; later editions are by Becq de Fouquières, 1862 and 1872; G. de Chénier, with new material, 3 vols., 1874; by Louis Moland, 2 vols., 1878-79.

For reference: Sainte-Beuve, _Portraits littéraires_, vol. i; Portraits contemporains_, vols, ii and v; _Causeries du lundi, vol. iv; Nouveaux lundis_, vol. iii; E. Faguet, le Dix- huitième siècle_, 1890; E. Caro, _la Fin du dix-huitième siècle_, vol. ii, 1882; J. Haraszti, _la Poésie

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