I was on the point of making my
way by means of M. de la Popliniere, to whom Gauffecourt, at my return to
Geneva had introduced me. M. de la Popliniere was the Mecaenas of
Rameau; Madam de la Popliniere his very humble scholar. Rameau was said
to govern in that house. Judging that he would with pleasure protect the
work of one of his disciples, I wished to show him what I had done. He
refused to examine it; saying he could not read score, it was too
fatiguing to him. M. de la Popliniere, to obviate this difficulty, said
he might hear it; and offered me to send for musicians to execute certain
detached pieces. I wished for nothing better. Rameau consented with an
ill grace, incessantly repeating that the composition of a man not
regularly bred to the science, and who had learned music without a
master, must certainly be very fine! I hastened to copy into parts five
or six select passages. Ten symphonies were procured, and Albert,
Berard, and Mademoiselle Bourbonois undertook the vocal part. Remeau,
the moment he heard the overture, was purposely extravagant in his
eulogium, by which he intended it should be understood it could not be my
composition. He showed signs of impatience at every passage: but after a
counter tenor song, the air of which was noble and harmonious, with a
brilliant accompaniment, he could no longer contain himself; he
apostrophised me with a brutality at which everybody was shocked,
maintaining that a part of what he had heard was by a man experienced in
the art, and the rest by some ignorant person who did not so much as
understand music. It is true my composition, unequal and without rule,
was sometimes sublime, and at others insipid, as that of a person who
forms himself in an art by the soarings of his own genius, unsupported by
science, must necessarily be. Rameau pretended to see nothing in me but
a contemptible pilferer, without talents or taste. The rest of the
company, among whom I must distinguish the master of the house, were of a
different opinion. M. de Richelieu, who at that time frequently visited
M. and Madam de la Popliniere, heard them speak of my work, and wished to
hear the whole of it, with an intention, if it pleased him, to have it
performed at court. The opera was executed with full choruses, and by a
great orchestra, at the expense of the king, at M. de Bonneval's
intendant of the Menus; Francoeur directed the band. The effect was
surprising: the duke never c