Rouget de Lisle ran back to his room half-drunk from that meeting and in the space of just a few hours wrote la Marseillaise. He probably stole the music from a popular song of the day, and he definitely stole half the words from graffiti plastered around the city – but what he created that night was undeniable, a song of defiance that would give everyone who heard it hope.

Yes, he did make it incredibly bloodthirsty. One line says, “Can you hear them in the countryside coming to slit the throats of your wives and children?” While the chorus cries out, “To arms, citizens… let’s water the fields with impure blood.” But Rouget de Lisle realised he needed to make it so shocking to motivate. He also knew those were not the song’s key lines. That goes to this the opening of the first verse. “Arise children of the fatherland, against us tyranny’s blood banner is raised,” it says. It is those lines that seem to be resonating around the world at this moment.

If you do not think the Marseillaise is great musically, you should only need to look at how the song has been used by other musicians to change your mind. Everyone from Wagner to The Beatles, Debussy to Serge Gainsbourg has taken it for their own. Perhaps most famously, it was used by Tchaikovsky in his great 1812 Overture. He meant it to symbolise France about to be defeated by Russian troops, but it is such a powerful melody, anyone listening would think France is the real winner in that battle.