The Napoleonic legend was not forged only on the battlefield. His victories or defeats, military or political, proven or fantasized, inspired the songwriters of the first half of the 19th century. Sometimes servants of imperial propaganda, like Émile Debraux with the patriotic
Do you remember
?. Sometimes slayers of Bonapartism, like this royalist songwriter in a biting
Merits of Bonaparte
. The latter fought their own political wars on fronts ranging from salons to underground Restoration vaults.
“Because, at that time, we risk our lives for songs,
underlines Arnaud Marzorati, director of the Clique des Lunaisiens, who has just published
Sainte-Hélène, the Napoleonic legend.
.
To sing the posthumous glory of Napoleon under his cloak, as Béranger does in
Sainte-Hélène to the tune of La République
, is to defy censorship at the risk of his freedom. "
Watch the video:
Unusual Napoleon: why was the Marseillaise never played under the Consulate and the Empire?
With seventeen songs, the Lunaisiens recall the importance of the figure
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