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CHAPTER VII.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
F
ROM the military spirit aroused by the first French republic, and more especially through the inordinate elevation of military life by the great Napoleon, came a fresh impulse to military music, the development of which was destined to outstrip in some respects, the progress then taking place in Prussia. When the opera house and the fashionable concerts of the aristocracy closed their doors for lack of patrons, the musicians transferred their services to the bands organised by the people. For the grand fetes of the revolution, wind bands of enormous proportions were organised, and the first composers in the land wrote for them. Foremost amongst the bands which took part in these great public ceremonials, was that of the National Guard. It was formed at the outbreak of the revolution by a Captain Sarrette, who gathered together forty-five able military bandsmen for this purpose. The strength was then raised to seventy, and no less a person than Gossec, the most
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