David A. Bell reviews ‘The Perfidy of Albion’ by Norman Hampson and ‘Poisoning the Minds of the Lower Orders’ by Don Herzog · LRB 10 December 1998
▻http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n24/david-a-bell/six-french-frizeurs
The now-forgotten poet Lebrun got his ‘Ode aux Français’ off to a rousing start with the line ‘Aux armes, citoyens!’ while his colleague Lefebvre de Beauvray told the English: ‘Et de ton sang impur [tu] abreuves tes sillons’ – lines that the military engineer Rouget de Lisle later adapted in the Marseillaise. It is fitting that the most bloodthirsty line in the French national anthem was written with the English in mind.