rocking the cradle
of his youngest child, while the eldest was tugging at the paternal
coat-tails. The mother, being _en deshabille_, ran away at the sight
of a stranger. The duke excused himself for his want of ceremony, and
added, "I am delighted to see so great a man living in such simplicity,
and that the author of 'La Bonne Fille' is such a good father."
Piccini's placid and pleasant life was destined, however, to pass into
stormy waters.

His sway over the stage and the popular preference continued until
1773, when a clique of envious rivals at Rome brought about his first
disaster. The composer was greatly disheartened, and took to his bed,
for he was ill alike in mind and body. The turning-point in his career
had come, and he was to enter into an arena which taxed his powers in a
contest such as he had not yet dreamed of. His operas having been
heard and admired in France, their great reputation inspired the
royal favorite, Mme. du Barry, with the hope of finding a successful
competitor to the great German composer, patronized by Marie Antoinette.
Accordingly, Piccini was offered an indemnity of six thousand francs,
and a residence in the hotel of the Neapolitan ambassador. When the
Italian arrived in Paris, Gluck was in full sway, the idol of the court
and public, and about to produce his "Armide."

Piccini was immediately commissioned to write a new opera, and he
applied to the brilliant Marmontel for a libretto. The poet rearranged
one of Quinault's tragedies, "Roland," and Piccini undertook the
difficult task of composing music to words in a language as yet unknown
to him. Marcnontel was his unwearied tutor, and he writes in his
"Memoirs" of his pleasant yet arduous task: "Line by line, word by word,
I had everything to explain; and, when he had laid hold of the meaning
of a passage, I recited it to him, marking the accent, the prosody,
and the cadence of the verses. He listened eagerly, and I had the
satisfaction to know that what he heard was carefully noted. His
delicate ear seized so readily the accent of the language and the
measure of the poetry, that in his music he never mistook them. It was
an inexpressible pleasure to me to see him practice before my eyes an
art of which before I had no idea. His harmony was in his mind. He wrote
his airs with the utmost rapidity, and when he had traced its designs,
he filled up all the parts of the score, distributing the traits of
harmony and melody, just as a