The tune of the hymn is reputed to have been composed by seminarians fleeing before the armies of Napoleon in the early 19th century.
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The college closed because of the Second World War, but was reopened in 1952 by its sixth rector, Thomas Francis Maloney, who reintroduced the hymn to the college, where it has been sung regularly ever since.
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It is also the signature song of the American College of the Immaculate Conception, the American seminary located in Leuven, Belgium, which has maintained the hymn over the past century and a half.