'Te souviens-tu?' - Post-Napoleonic French Hymn

"Do you recall?" is one of the most famous songs by Émile Debraux, sung to an aria by Joseph-Denis Doche. Dating from 1817, it contributed to the celebrity of its author.

It poignantly evokes the memories of a former officer of the Grande Armée who meets a veteran, a simple soldier who begs for bread and who once saved his life in combat.

The allusion to begging also refers here to the fact that the former officers obtained, after the end of the First Empire, the authorization to beg if necessary to meet their needs, begging being otherwise a repressed offense at the time.

[gwennlebel]

Les dégâts de l'éducation d'enfant de messe