Lisle is known for writing the words and music of the Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin, which would later be known as La Marseillaise and become the French national anthem.

He was the eldest son of Claude Ignace Rouget (5 April 1735 – 6 August 1792) at Orgelet and Jeanne Madeleine Gaillande (2 July 1734 – 20 March 1811).

[1] The song that has immortalized him, "La Marseillaise", was composed at Strasbourg, where Rouget de Lisle was garrisoned in April 1792.

The piece was at first called Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine") and only received its name of Marseillaise from its adoption by the Provençal volunteers whom Barbaroux introduced into Paris and who were prominent in the storming of the Tuileries Palace on 10 August 1792.

[4] He returned to public life after the July Revolution and was awarded the Legion of Honour by Louis Philippe I.