Partant pour la Syrie


"Partant pour la Syrie" is a French patriotic song, the music of which was written by Hortense de Beauharnais and the text by Alexandre de Laborde in or about 1807.

Background

The song was inspired by Napoleon's campaign in Egypt and Syria. It represents a chivalric composition of the aspirations of a crusader knight in a style typical for the First French Empire. Hortense indicated in her Memoires that she wrote the music when she lived at Malmaison. During its popularity in the nineteenth century the song was arranged for numerous instruments by various composers.
The poem by Laborde was originally titled Le beau Dunois telling the story of the handsome crusader Dunois. Prior to his departure to Syria he prays to the Virgin Mary that he will love the most beautiful woman and that he himself may be the bravest. His prayers are answered. On his return the brave warrior wins the hand of Isabelle. Love and honor prevail.

Popularity

The song was popular during the remainder of the First Empire, with Hortense in her exile at Arenenberg, and with the Bonapartists during the Bourbon Restoration. Partant pour la Syrie was the unofficial national anthem during the Second Empire, during which La Marseillaise was regarded with suspicion. After the collapse of the Second Empire the song was played to the Emperor Napoleon III as he departed from Schloss Wilhelmshöhe to his exile in England in 1871, but by the time of Empress Eugénie's funeral in 1920 the band did not know it and played La Marseillaise instead. Partant pour la Syrie did however achieve a posthumous fame as one of the quoted tunes in "Fossils" from Camille Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals, written in 1886 but not published until 1922.
It remains part of the repertoire of French military music.

Lyrics