Sometime before the Devin du Village was performed, a company of Italian Bouffons had arrived at Paris, and were ordered to perform at the opera-house, without the effect they would produce there being foreseen.Although they were detestable, and the orchestra, at that time very ignorant, mutilated at will the pieces they gave, they did the French opera an injury that will never be repaired.The comparison of these two kinds of music, heard the same evening in the same theater, opened the ears of the French; nobody could endure their languid music after the marked and lively accents of Italian composition; and the moment the Bouffons had done, everybody went away.The managers were obliged to change the order of representation, and let the performance of the Bouffons be the last.Egle, Pigmalion and le Sylphe were successively given: nothing could bear the comparison.The Devin du Village was the only piece that did it, and this was still relished after la Serva Padrona.When I composed my interlude, my head was filled with these pieces, and they gave me the first idea of it: I was, however, far from imagining they would one day be passed in review by the side of my composition.Had Ibeen a plagiarist, how many pilferings would have been manifest, and what care would have been taken to point them out to the public! But Ihad done nothing of the kind.All attempts to discover any such thing were fruitless: nothing was found in my music which led to the recollection of that of any other person; and my whole composition compared with the pretended original, was found to be as new as the musical characters I had invented.Had Mondonville or Rameau undergone the same ordeal, they would have lost much of their substance.
The Bouffons acquired for Italian music very warm partisans.All Paris was divided into two parties, the violence of which was greater than if an affair of state or religion had been in question.
One them, the most powerful and numerous, composed of the great, of men of fortune, and the ladies, supported French music; the other, more lively and haughty, and fuller of enthusiasm, was composed of real connoisseurs, and men of talents and genius.This little group assembled at the opera-house, under the box belonging to the queen.
The other party filled up the rest of the pit and the theater; but the heads were mostly assembled under the box of his majesty.Hence the party names of Coin du Roi, Coin de la Reine,* then in great celebrity.The dispute, as it became more animated, produced several pamphlets.The king's corner aimed at pleasantry; it was laughed at by the Petit Prophete.It attempted to reason; the Lettre sur la Musique Francaise refuted its reasoning.These two little productions, the former of which was by Grimm, the latter by myself, are the only ones which have outlived the quarrel; all the rest are long since forgotten.
* King's corner,- Queen's corner.
But the Petit Prophete, which, notwithstanding all I could say, was for a long time attributed to me, was considered as a pleasantry, and did not produce the least inconvenience to the author:
whereas the letter on music was taken seriously, and incensed against me the whole nation, which thought itself offended by this attack on its music.The description of the incredible effect of this pamphlet would be worthy of the pen of Tacitus.The great quarrel between the parliament and the clergy was then at its height.The parliament had just been exiled; the fermentation was general;everything announced an approaching insurrection.The pamphlet appeared: from that moment every other quarrel was forgotten; the perilous state of French music was the only thing by which the attention of the public was engaged, and the only insurrection was against myself.This was so general that it has never since been totally calmed.At court, the bastile or banishment was absolutely determined on, and a lettre de cachet would have been issued had not M.de Voyer set forth in the most forcible manner that such a step would be ridiculous.Were I to say this pamphlet probably prevented a revolution, the reader would imagine I was in a dream.It is, however, a fact, the truth of which all Paris can attest, it being no more than fifteen years since the date of this singular fad.
Although no attempts were made on my liberty, I suffered numerous insults; and even my life was in danger.The musicians of the opera orchestra humanely resolved to murder me as I went out of the theater.