Poems set to music
Throughout the exploits of General Napoleon Bonaparte, then those of the First Consul, and even more so during his reign as Emperor, countless poems and odes were written in his honor. Their number did not diminish after his death, throughout the Romantic period and beyond.
In order to offer the visitor a unique and innovative auditory experience, we have set some of these texts to music, with the help of artificial intelligence software from the American company Suno Inc., in the spirit of the contemporary composers of their publication, in various styles: French melody, military march, opera aria, etc.
Other compositions will be added to this page in the months and years to come.
BARTHÉLEMY, Auguste (Marseille 1794 - Marseille 1867) and MÉRY, Joseph (Marseille 1797 - Paris 1866)
"Les Pyramides" - Published in 1828 in the collection “Napoléon en Égypte”
These two poets from Marseille had brilliant careers in Paris (Méry was also a journalist, novelist, playwright, and librettist), and collaborated so closely that their individual personalities are indistinguishable in their joint work. From the long poem Les Pyramides (the third canto of Napoléon en Égypte, which has eight cantos), written in rhyming alexandrines, we have set the most descriptive stanzas to music.
Version reduced to thirty-six lines, set to music in 2026:
BÉRANGER, Pierre-Jean de - (Paris 1780 - Paris 1857)
"Sainte-Hélène" - Published in 1866 in "Chansons anciennes et posthumes"
The prolific Parisian songwriter and pamphleteer, initially protected by Lucien Bonaparte, was extremely famous during his lifetime. A fervent admirer of Napoleon, he composed this poem in alternating rhymes in which God himself, no less than eighteen centuries in advance, orders the preparation of the tomb that will house the exiled Emperor.
Full version, set to music in 2025:
DESBORDES-VALMORE, Marceline (Douai 1786 - Paris 1859)
"Le Saule" - Published in 1843 in the collection “Bouquets et prières”
This pioneer of Romantic poetry was cherished as an equal by Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Sainte-Beuve, and later celebrated after her death by Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, and, in the 20th century, by Louis Aragon. This poem, composed on the occasion of the return of Napoleon's ashes, has a meter modeled on the Willow Romance from the opera Otello by Gioachino Rossini.
Version set to music in 2026:
GIESECKE, Karl Ludwig (Augsburg 1761 - Dublin 1833)
"Beresinalied" - Published in 1792 under the name "Die Nachtreise"
The last four stanzas of Giesecke's poem, alternating between octosyllabic and heptasyllabic lines, were popularized under the title Beresinalied after being sung by Swiss soldiers of the II Corps during the Battle of the Berezina. Becoming a symbol of the sacrifices of Swiss mercenaries in the service of the Grande Armée, this folk song has since become very well known throughout the Swiss Confederation, primarily in the version set to music in 1832 by Johann Immanuel Müller (1774-1839). It is a radically different version that we offer you.
Version set to music in 2026:
GIRARDIN née GAY, Delphine (Aachen 1804 - Paris 1855)
"Au mont Saint-Bernard" - Published in 1856
These lines are taken from the poem L'Echo des Alpes, in which Delphine de Girardin more broadly celebrates the memory of the three great warriors who gloriously crossed the Alps: Hannibal, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon. This poem appears in her Complete Works; Volume I: Poems, Poetry, Improvisations.
Version set to music in 2025:
HEINE, Heinrich - (Düsseldorf 1797 - Paris 1856)
"Die Grenadiere" - Published in 1827 in the collection of poems "Buch der Lieder"
The German poet and writer, who at the age of thirteen witnessed Napoleon's entry into his hometown, always admired him, if only for the Civil Code, which granted Jews equal status with everyone else under the law. This poem has already been set to music by Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner, so we have chosen the most modest arrangement possible...
Version set to music in 2025:
HEMANS née BROWNE, Felicia Dorothea (Liverpool 1793 - Dublin 1835)
"Casabianca" (The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck) - Published in August 1826
Considered the greatest female English-language poet of her time, Hemans enjoyed immense popularity during her lifetime, both in England and the United States, her literary success surpassed only by that of Lord Byron. Here, in ballad meter where each quatrain alternates octosyllabic and hexasyllabic lines with cross rhymes, she recounts the tragic death of Giocante Casabianca, the young son of the commander of the French flagship L’Orient, during the Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay) in 1798.
Version set to music in 2026:
HUGO, Victor (Besançon 1802 - Paris 1885)
"Après la bataille" - Written in 1850, published in 1859 in the collection "La Légende des siècles"
In this first poem of Part XIII of The Legend of the Ages, composed in rhyming alexandrines, Hugo portrays his father, a general of the French Empire, then stationed in Spain under King Joseph. In an epic and descriptive style, he pays homage in the last ten lines to his father's humanity.
Version set to music in 2025:
KONOPNICKA née WASIŁOWSKA, Maria (Suwałki 1842 - Lwów 1910)
"Wąwóz Somosierry" - Published in 1905 under the pseudonym Jan SAWA
Maria Konopnicka was the greatest female poet and short story writer of Polish Positivism (a literary, social, and patriotic movement of the late 19th century). Here, in alexandrine verse, she recounts the formidable charge of Polish cavalry during the Battle of Somosierra in Spain, which earned the admiration of Napoleon himself.
Version set to music in 2026:
MANZONI, Alessandro (Milan 1785 - Milan 1873)
"Il cinque maggio" - Written in 1821
The illustrious Italian poet and patriot, a Francophile, composed this religious and historical meditation in one sitting as soon as news of the deposed Emperor's death reached him on July 17, 1821. The work, consisting of 108 seven-syllable lines grouped into six-line stanzas, escaped Austrian censorship and enjoyed success throughout Europe, with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe translating it into German the following year.
Full version, set to music in 2025:
MUSSET, Alfred de - (Paris 1810 - Paris 1857)
"Napoléon" - Published in the collection "Poésies posthumes"
The great French poet, playwright, and writer of the Romantic period, who was only ten years old when Napoleon died, composed this nine-quatrain poem in octosyllabic, decasyllabic, and alexandrine verses in the Emperor's memory.
Version set to music in 2025:
NERVAL, Gérard LABRUNIE, a.k.a. de - (Paris 1808 - Paris 1855)
"La Tête armée" - Published in 1854 in the collection "Nouvelles Chimères"
In this poem in alexandrine verse, in the form of a sonnet (a codified form consisting of fourteen lines, with two quatrains and two tercets following one another, here in the sequence ABAB ABAB CCD EED), Nerval, one of the leading figures of the French Romantic movement, draws inspiration from what was supposedly Napoleon's last vision on Saint Helena, just before his death.
Version set to music in 2025:
PARSEVAL-GRANDMAISON, François-Auguste (Paris 1759 - Paris 1834)
"Ode sur la victoire de Marengo" - Written in 1800
Parseval-Grandmaison had participated as a poet in General Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, and had returned with him aboard the Muiron. He composed, immediately after the Battle of Marengo, this ode in seventeen eight-line stanzas of octosyllabic verse in alternating rhymes.
Version reduced to eight eight-line stanzas, set to music in 2025:
QUINET, Edgar (Bourg-en-Bresse 1803 - Versailles 1875)
"Austerlitz" - Published in 1836
This is poem XXIII from the epic collection Napoléon, which contains fifty-two poems, included in volume seven of Edgar Quinet's Complete Works. The Battle of Austerlitz is depicted there, quite rightly, from the perspective of the Russian defeat, but strangely omits that of the Austrians..
Full version, set to music in 2025:
RIEFFEL, Auguste a.k.a. HANIEL (Strasbourg 1877 - Strasbourg 1945)
"’S isch gsin in Spanie drunte" - Published in 1919
The anecdote (or legend) of Emperor Napoleon eating potatoes with his soldiers at the bivouac has given rise to numerous accounts. Here is the one, in alexandrine verse and in Alsatian dialect, by the Strasbourg satirical poet and playwright Charles Auguste Rieffel.
Version set to music in 2025:
