or the art, which one taught, and the other learned, it is all that
which you must imagine, to get an idea of the talent of Mme. Piccinni.
He did not wish her to go on the stage, where everything promised her
the greatest success and the most brilliant fortune; but at home almost
every evening, at the private concerts, or, as the Italians say, in all
the 'academies' where one is glad to be invited, she sang only her
husband's music. She rendered it with the true spirit of the master; and
I have it from him, that he never heard his works, especially his 'Cara
Cecchina' sung with such perfect art, and what would put it above art,
so much soul, and expression, as by his wife."

In 1773 Piccinni found himself suddenly deprived of the fickle support
of the Roman public. Worst of all, it was his own pupil and protege,
Anfossi, who supplanted him. The tender-hearted Piccinni, like
Palestrina, was so overcome with this humiliation, that he fell ill, and
kept his bed for several months. Two years later, the Prince of
Brunswick's younger brother went to Naples to visit him, and there he
happened upon a domestic scene which gives us a pretty notion of
Piccinni's home life.

"He surprised Piccinni in the midst of his family, and was amazed at the
tableau. Piccinni was rocking the cradle of his youngest child, born
that same year; another of his children tugged at his coat to make him
tip over the cradle; the mother revelling in the spectacle. She fled in
dismay at seeing the stranger, who stood at the door, enjoying the scene
himself. The young prince made himself known, begged pardon for his
indiscretion, and said with feeling, 'I am charmed to see that so great
a man has so much simplicity, and that the author of "The Good Daughter"
[one of his most successful operas] can be so good a father.'"

The next year, 1776, Piccinni was called to Paris as an unwilling
conscript in the musical revolution, which was raging no less fiercely
than the American Revolution of the same time. It was a bitter December
day when Piccinni arrived in Paris with his wife, and his eldest
daughter, aged eighteen. "Devoted to his art, foreign to all intrigue,
to all ambition, to the morals, tastes, customs, and language of the
country, Piccinni lived in his family circle, and devoted himself
quietly to his work, in oblivion of the efforts that the Gluckists made
to thwart the success, and even to prevent the representation, of his
work. It must be said