The lyrics are about a villager who meets "a band of sailors, workers and peasants" who are going to ambush the "Franks" and win their freedom.
He joins them and sings about the plight of his wife, visiting her and children in secret during the war, and possibly dying for his homeland.
The chorus mentions the fortresses of Fougères and Clisson, which seems to point to the feudal wars of the Bretons against the French at the border of the duchy.
However, the rebels' "charged guns" indicate a more recent past; therefore, the only plausible period is believed to be the Chouannerie war of the French Revolution, popularized by La Villemarqué in Barzaz Breiz.
[4] That same evening, he sang it for the first time at Ti Jos, a Breton restaurant at Montparnasse, where he made a living by begging.