Diderot was also a warm partisan of the Italians. Pergolesi's
beautiful music having been murdered by the French orchestra players at
the Grand Opera-House, Diderot proposed for it the following witty and
laconic inscription: "Hic Marsyas Apollinem."*

* Here Marsyas flayed Apollo.

Rousseau's opera, "Le Devin du Village," was performed with considerable
success, in spite of the repugnance of the orchestral performers,
of whom Rousseau always spoke in terms of unmeasured contempt, to do
justice to the music. They burned Rousseau in effigy for his scoffs.
"Well," said the author of the "Confessions," "I don't wonder that they
should hang me now, after having so long put me to the torture."

The eloquence and abuse of the wits, however, did not long impair the
supremacy of Rameau; for the Italian company returned to their own
land, disheartened by their reception in the French capital. Though this
composer commenced so late in life, he left thirty-six dramatic works.
His greatest work was "Castor et Pollux." Thirty years later Grimm
recognized its merits by admitting, in spite of the great faults of the
composer, "It is the pivot on which the glory of French music turns."
When Louis XIV. offered Rameau a title, he answered, touching his breast
and forehead, "My nobility is here and here." This composer marked a
step forward in French music, for he gave it more boldness and freedom,
and was the first really scientific and well-equipped exponent of
a national school. His choruses were full of energy and fire, his
orchestral effects rich and massive. He died in 1764, and the mortuary
music, composed by himself, was performed by a double orchestra and
chorus from the Grand Opera.

III.

A distinguished place in the records of French music must be assigned to
Andre Ernest Gretry, born at Liege in 1741. His career covered the
most important changes in the art as colored and influenced by national
tastes, and he is justly regarded as the father of comic opera in his
adopted country. His childish life was one of much severe discipline and
tribulation, for he was dedicated to music by his father, who was first
violinist in the college of St. Denis when he was only six years old. He
afterward wrote of this time in his "Essais sur la Musique": "The hour
for the lesson afforded the teacher an opportunity to exercise his
cruelty. He made us sing each in turn, and woe to him who made the least
mistake; he was beaten unmerci