What is the story behind the song The Two Grenadiers?

Answer 1

Two soldiers of Napoleon's army have been released form their military prison in Russia and are plodding footsore, weary, and wounded across the plains of Poland on their homeward journey to France. When they reach the frontier of Germany they learn for the first time that Napoleon and his army have been defeated at Waterloo. The imagination can readily picture these war-worn men, seated perhaps at some little inn and hearing the story from the lips of the master of the house. The dreadful tidings come as a sudden blow to them; they are filled with profound emotion. One grenadier starts from his seat with a gesture of despair which causes his old wound to bleed out afresh, and he sinks back, sobbing, "Would I were dead!" The other soldier is evidently a man of a totally different nature, and though he cares no longer for life, he says that he has a wife and child and that he must return home to support them. At this his companion, filled with patriotic ardor, cries out that he cares nothing for his family -- let them beg. All he can think of is his Emperor and his Country. Then, realizing that his life is ebbing away, he asks his comrade to carry his dead body back to France and bury it in the sacred soil of their beloved land. He directs that his Cross of Honor be placed on his breast, his musket by his side, and his sabre girded on him, so that he may lie there fully armed to arise, if need be, from the dead to help his beloved Emperor back to the throne.

This is the story which had been so thrillingly treated by Schumann. No wonder he was so inspired to in the declaration of the final lines of this stirring poem the ever-glorious strain of La Marseillaise.

by David Bispham