Item 1028 - Bonne grand maman

French lyricist and composer Gaston Theophile Baron was born in 1874 in Armentierès in northern France. In 1908 he wrote a one-act vaudeville piece entitled “Un constat qui finit bien.” Throughout the early decades of the 20th century he was based in Montmartre, the artists’ neighborhood in Paris, where he both composed and wrote lyrics for songs. During World War I, Marianne, as the feminine symbol of the French motherland, became popular in French art and literature, and Baron wrote a nationalist song “Marianne, Marianne” in 1919. He wrote many other patriotic songs and contributed songs for the booklet "Songs of the Republic of Montmartre.” (The “Republic of Montmartre” was a charitable and cultural organization founded by a group of artists from that neighborhood in 1921.) The Bibliothèque Nationale de France holds 94 entries linked to Baron.