Jacob Franciene

Jacob Franciene was an Isido musician and revolutionary leader who played a leading role in the Revolution of 1855. He is famous for writing a song in a 1855 that would later become Les Rives de Notre Terre, the national anthem of the Republic of Isidorrey.

Early Life
Franciene was born in Criqueville on the 1st of July 1815. He grew up in an upper middle class household and enjoyed the benefits of economic stability in his family for his whole life. This didn’t stop him however, from frequently playing with poor children in the more rough areas of the town and learning from a young age of how mistreated many people were in Isidorrey.

Education
Jacob is cited as having a passion for music throughout his childhood, and this is why he studied music throughout his time at Francois Jacoin College in Criqueville and why he went to the University of Paris specifically for the purpose of becoming a fully fledged musician.

After finishing a degree in Paris, he taught music for a few years before moving back to Isidorrey to see that it had gone into an even worse state than it had been during his college days.

Revolutionary Radicalisation
When Franciene moved back to Isidorrey and saw that poverty, starvation, anger, and military presence on the islands had worsened, he became a very resentful man.

While playing piano in a bar in Murses he met the Monesior brothers. Karl Monesior is said to have been Jacob’s greatest influence when it came to him becoming a revolutionary and Karl is also said to have had a personal connection in the form of a close friendship with Franciene.

It was after meeting the Monesior brothers that Jacob became radicalised to the idea of militancy. He wanted to fight back against the system that although it hadn’t hurt him personally, had hurt many in his home.

As years went by Franciene rose up to become prominent in the revolutionary movement, other revolutionaries looked up to him and saw him as a way to get the masses on board as he was a natural speaker and motivator.

During the Revolution
The year before the revolution, Franciene wrote the song that would become the national anthem of Isidorrey. This is seen as his most notable achievement by many, however historians like to point out the other important things he did, especially when the revolt actually broke out.

Jacob was known as the ‘propaganda king’ by his comrades in the revolutionary leadership. He worked hard to get as many to join the fight as possible and Karl Monesior saw his great efforts and noted in his memoirs that ‘the fight to create change would have never had such a large army behind it without the work of that one, Jacob Franciene’.

During the later days of the revolution, Franciene did something that he didn’t think he would ever do. According to him he was ‘not quite the military man’, however he would lead a guerrilla force of armed peasants around Isidorrey in the latter part of the revolution. It is noted that he was particularly fierce as a fighter and claimed the lives of many French soldiers.

Capture, Execution and Legacy
After a failed attempt at a raid on a military encampment in Ignaston village, Jacob was captured and taken on a ship to mainland France. He was held for a couple of days in a prison in Normandy before being hung in the town of Caen.

The legacy of Jacob Franciene is mostly that of his music, he is studied in music classes in both Isidorrey and wider Europe, and of course his song, Les Rives de Notre Terre, is the official national anthem of the Republic of Isidorrrey. There is a statue of Franciene in Fort Argente (Ignaston) and there is a memorial to his death in the form a golden plaque on the wall of the house where he grew up in in Criqueville.