Robert Planquette (1848-1903) studied at the Paris Conservatoire and became known as a composer of popular songs. He later wrote twelve operettas, of which Les cloches de Corneville (The Bells of Corneville, 1877) is the only one to have retained its place in the repertoire. In its time it was immensely popular and, during a ten-year period, it was performed more than a thousand times. In 1871 he composed Sambre et Meuse ([20]), a setting of a strongly patriotic poem by Paul...

Robert Planquette (1848-1903) studied at the Paris Conservatoire and became known as a composer of popular songs. He later wrote twelve operettas, of which Les cloches de Corneville (The Bells of Corneville, 1877) is the only one to have retained its place in the repertoire. In its time it was immensely popular and, during a ten-year period, it was performed more than a thousand times. In 1871 he composed Sambre et Meuse ([20]), a setting of a strongly patriotic poem by Paul Cezano, Le Régiment de Sambre et Meuse, that kept alive the spirit of the French Revolution. The name of the regiment comes from two rivers: the Sambre is a tributary of the Meuse.