Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle has immortalized him, "La Marseillaise", was composed at Strasbourg, where Rouget de Lisle was garrisoned in April 1792. France had just declared war on Austria, and the mayor of Strasbourg, baron Philippe-Frédéric de Dietrich, held a dinner for the officers of the garrison, at which he lamented that France had no national anthem. Rouget de Lisle returned to his quarters and wrote the words in a fit of patriotic excitement. The piece was at first called "Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin" ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine") and only received its name of "Marseillaise" from its
History of music in Paris old contredanse by the violinist Bécaut called "Le Carillon national". The song took its title from an expression, "That will happen," which Benjamin Franklin, the American envoy to Paris, had popularized, describing the American Revolution. The most famous song of the period was the "Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin" (Battle Song of the Army of the Rhine), by a young army officer, Claude Rouget de Lisle. It was first sung in public on 30 July 1791 by a battalion of volunteers from Marseille as they marched into Paris, and thereafter became known as the "Hymne des Marseillais", which