ABSTRACT
Performing French music and masculinising French art would thus constitute patriotic acts, bestowing cultural identity on and power to the defeated France. Perceived as the victory of a Prussia that 'founds its force on the development of primary education and on the identity of army and nation', the débâcle challenged France's identity as a nation-state. The musical world in France responded to the Franco-Prussian war through militaristic rhetoric in its journals, the composition of numerous patriotic songs such as 'La Française' and a patriotic choice of subjects for vocal music. Patriotism was clearly the motive behind the choice of text for the 1871 Prix de Rome competition: an adapted fragment of Jules Barbier's play Jeanne d'Arc containing the scene of Jeanne's call to save France. Renan claims that widespread popular education as a decisive element in Germany's victory became a national obsession in Third-Republic France, and French educational reforms after 1871 emphasised patriotic issues in their teaching programmes.
