Americans, who think la Marseillaise and the tricolour represent France, tend to forget that it was the royal victim of the revolutionaries who was the best foreign friend of the new American republic.
One of the downsides to living in New Orleans is the continuing pressure to play the Frenchman for the amusement of outlanders. For several years, my late pastor used to allow himself to be drawn into this fakery, countenancing the playing of the Marseillaise as the recessional after Mass on the Sunday preceeding every July 14. For years I suffered this with clenched teeth, but ten or so years ago, having just finished reading Simon Schama's Citizens, I called him up and asked that in light of the thousands of Catholics martyred in the Revolution, he reconsider this practice. It was not played again.
Perhaps the line about "impure blood" was particularly agreeable to them.
At the Mass, several French hymns are usually sung. I believe they are specifically "Royalist." If you wish, I will research further.
Anyone remember this or know the title? I'd like to rent it.
Your loss. I have French Huguenot ancestors and have listened as a single soprano sang a breathtakingly beautiful hymn in the completely dark Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris before a late night service. It brought tears to my eyes. I did this without thinking of the thousands of Huguenots massacred, burned at the stake, and persecuted by Catholics in the two centuries before the French Revolution.
The Marseillaise scene in Casablanca, whatever its source, captures the resistance and spirit of the French people at the time of their subjugation by the Germans. Beautiful moment. Why not think of that the next time you hear the song.