French singer-songwriter, the writer of such notable songs as “Gloire au 17ème” and “La Butte Rouge”.
Montéhus was the eldest child of 22 in an improverished working-class family of Jewish descent.
He began to sing in public at the age of 12, in 1884, a decade before the beginning of the Dreyfus Affair. He published his first song (“Au camarade du 153ème”) in 1897. It was then that he adopted his pseudonym, easier to bear than his name in the context of strong antisemitism. In 1907, he published “Gloire au 17ème” in honour of the regiment of soldiers who refused to fire on a demonstration of wine growers in Béziers.
In his lively, driven songs, Montéhus opposed war, capitalist exploitation, prostitution, poverty, religious hypocrisy, but also income tax. He also defended the cause of women in a remarkable way. “La grève des Mères” (The Mothers’ Strike) was legally banned and Montéhus condemned for “incitement to abortion”.
Montéhus maintained relations with Vladimir Lenin; moreover, the latter made reference to this in his correspondence.
During the First World War, Montéhus, like many others, underwent a radical change of political opinion. He made himself the zealous changer of the Union Sacrée and sang militarist songs. Montéhus was the image of the working people, who left en masse for the front contrary to the fears of the state adjutant who had overestimated the workers’ commitment to pacifism. At the end of the war in 1918, for his good and loyal services, he received the Croix de Guerre.
He died on 31 December 1952 in Paris.