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New Light on the Bouffons in Paris (1752–1754)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2014

DAVID CHARLTON
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Abstract

Modern writing on the troupe of Eustachio Bambini has encouraged different thinking about the ‘querelle’ and the ‘bouffons’. Andrea Fabiano, in particular, has intimated a fresh view of Bambini's Parisian repertory that aims to understand the various tactics of pamphleteers and free itself from received opinion. Recent writers have taken a harder look at the evidential assumptions that led to a long-held weighting of the bouffon narrative towards Pergolesi's La serva padrona on one hand and the departure of the Italian troupe on the other, politicized as this was by outraged reactions to Rousseau's Lettre sur la musique françoise. In the present account, the emphasis is on new evidence, both primary and secondary. It fills in new details concerning the institutional relationship between Bambini and the Paris Opéra, alerts us to hitherto unreported performances by the bouffons between Easter 1753 and February 1754 and tells us that a rearguard action for compensation was fought by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Rousselet of Rouen, whose original contract with Bambini had been severed in November 1752. The concluding picture is one of constructive support for Bambini by the Opéra; indeed, a creative collaboration between these two had been arranged before the querelle began. Mandated by the king in 1749 to recognize a public-interest function in running the Opéra, its directeur (Bernage de Saint-Maurice) may well have wanted to continue some form of binary programming between the two traditions, French and Italian, at the point when Rousseau's Lettre made it impossible. Box-office takings rose during the early success of his initiatives, especially before Easter 1753; after this juncture the extant financial records are not adequate to judge such profitability.

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Articles
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Eighteenth-Century Music , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 31 - 54
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

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26 Jommelli's name appears on the Paris libretto (Paris: De Lormel) and the early manuscript scores at F-Po, A.190.b and F-Pn, Vm4 529: the latter may be autograph and is entitled L'uccellatrice, bearing the date 1750. Marita McClymonds included both versions in the Jommelli work-list in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera. No pre-Parisian version of Il cinese is known at all, and Michael Robinson entered this piece in Sellitto's entry within the same dictionary. On ‘pasticcio’ see the useful definitions by Curtis Price, again in New Grove Dictionary of Opera.

27 Lazarevich, ‘Pergolesi and the “Guerre des Bouffons”’, 197.

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30 Mackenzie, ‘The Creation of a Genre’, 139–140. A facsimile of the manuscript source at I-Fc, MS D. 180 has been published (New York: Garland, 1979).

31 These operas were by Giovanni Chinzer (Florence, 1731) and Rinaldo di Capua (Rome, 1738): Mackenzie, ‘The Creation of a Genre’, 74–78, 418.

32 See, for example, the ‘death list’, as Lazarevich calls it, contained in one of the pamphlets in the querelle, naming La finta cameriera, La donna superba and La scaltra governatrice: Lazarevich, ‘Pergolesi and the “Guerre des Bouffons”’, 200, note 29, quoting ‘La guerre de l'Opéra’, in La Querelle des Bouffons, texte des pamphlets avec introduction, commentaire et index, ed. Denise Launay, three volumes (Geneva: Minkoff, 1973), volume 1, 319. Note 28 of Lazarevich's article draws estimations from de Noinville, J. Durey's Histoire de l'Académie Royale de Musique (Paris: Duchesne, 1757)Google Scholar.

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34 Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 31.

35 Cook, Duet and Ensemble, 59–60, noting that the main Bertoldo source (F-Po, A.191) preserves two different trios at the close of Act 1; however, they have completely different texts.

36 Heartz, Daniel, Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720–1780 (New York: Norton, 2003), 710Google Scholar.

37 1753 saw the climax of the vexed religious, constitutional and individual conflicts surrounding the papal bull Unigenitus (1713), which outlawed Jansenism: Elisabeth Cook, ‘Querelle des Bouffons’, in New Grove Dictionary of Opera; Rogister, John, Louis XV and the Parlement of Paris, 1737–1755 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Swann, Julian, Politics and the Parlement of Paris under Louis XV, 1754–1774 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blanning, The Culture of Power, 357–374.

38 The pamphlet is assigned to the first part of November by reason of its sentence ‘Three miserable intermezzos have fascinated the public for the last three months’ (‘Trois misérables intermèdes ont fasciné le Public depuis trois mois’), cited in Reichenburg, Louisette, Contribution à l'histoire de la ‘Querelle des Bouffons’ (Philadelphia[: University of Pennsylvania Press], 1937; reprinted New York: AMS Press, 1978), 45Google Scholar. She reports evidence on page 118 that the pamphlet might have been issued in two separate editions, one of eleven pages, the other of seventeen pages. See also Launay, ed., La Querelle des Bouffons, volume 1, xxv.

39 In this respect I am thinking of Schneider, Herbert and Wiesend, Reinhard, eds, Die Oper im 18. Jahrhundert (Laaber: Laaber, 2001), 11, 176Google Scholar. The Paris bouffon repertory is not indexed in this book (save for La serva padrona, of course) except in so far as Bertoldo in corte (see ‘Ciampi’) and Il cinese (see ‘Sellitto’) became vernacular (French) operas; Il marito giocatore and Serpilla e Bacocco (see ‘Orlandini’) are mentioned only during earlier generic discussions.

40 Ippolito ed Aricia, 9 May 1759, and I Tindaridi, o Castore e Polluce, April 1760: Heartz, Daniel, ‘Traetta in Parma: Ippolito ed Aricia’, in Heartz, , From Garrick to Gluck: Essays on Opera in the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Rice, John A. (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon, 2004), 271–292Google Scholar.

41 Charlton, David, Opera in the Age of Rousseau: Music, Confrontation, Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), especially 251–280CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Chorus music was heard not only in Il maestro di musica and La zingara but also Bertoldo in corte and I viaggiatori Act 2 Scenes 5–7, from a ‘Coro di cittadini veneziani’: I viaggiatori, intermezzo per musica, in tre atti ([Paris:] Veuve Delormel & Fils, 1754), 50–58.

42 F-Po, Opéra Arch. 18 (25): upright folio, 92 pages (modern pencil), 36.5 cm×24.5 cm, headed ‘Inventaire des papiers et pièces déposées au Greffe de la Ville depuis son administration de l'Académie Royale de Musique’, with the first entry dated 25 August 1749, continuing until the end of 1757, plus a stray final entry dated 13 April 1758.

43 Didier, Béatrice, Le livret d'opéra en France au XVIIIe siècle (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2013), 19–20Google Scholar. Didier flags up its unusual interest ‘since it concerns a key period of the Enlightenment century, and since many documents that it mentions have disappeared. We see in it the life of the Opéra from one day to the next.’

44 These accounts are translated in Wood, Caroline and Sadler, Graham, eds, French Baroque Opera: A Reader (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 17–18Google Scholar, drawn from the journals of Edmond-Jean-François Barbier and Charles Collé. ‘Letters Patent’ were open documents issued by the monarch for various purposes.

45 In 1744 Tréfontaine co-issued a mémoire whose long title supplies biographical details: ‘Mémoire signifié, servant de réponses à prétendues causes et moyens d'appel, pour les sieurs Louis Dupré d'Aulnay, commissaire des guerres, Joseph Guenot de Tréfontaine et Jean-Frédéric Bougenier, munitionnaires et associés dans l'entreprise des vivres de l'armée du roi en Provence, comté de Nice et Piémont, pendant la campagne de 1744,… contre Jean-Baptiste Chabert … tous munitionnaires et associés dans la même entreprise’ (no publication details known).

46 Bély, Lucien, ed., Dictionnaire de l'Ancien Régime (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996), 1016Google Scholar. For a biographical sketch see Prévost, M., d'Amat, R. and others, Dictionnaire de biographie française (Paris: Letouzay & Ané, 1933–), volume 6, 37–38Google Scholar.

47 Garrioch, David, The Making of Revolutionary Paris (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002), 130Google Scholar.

48 ‘He had been blamed for his parsimony’: Marmontel, Jean-François, Mémoires, ed. Guicciardi, Jean-Pierre and Thierriat, Gilles (no place of publication known: Mercure de France, 1999), 502Google Scholar, note 213.

49 Solveig Serre, ‘L'Académie royale de musique (1749–1790)’, three volumes (dissertation, École nationale des chartes, 2005), volume 1, 167.

50 ‘It's very easy to say that money-men are rogues, but not so easy to prove it’ (‘Il est bien aisé de dire que les gens de Finance sont des fripons, mais il n'est pas si facile de le prouver’): Anonymous, La Capitale des Gaules, ou La nouvelle Babilonne (La Haye, 1759), 20–21.

51 Extracted from ‘Lettres patentes en faveur de la Ville de Paris’, 25 August 1749: Paris, Archives nationales (hereafter AN) O1 613, transcribed in Serre, ‘L'Académie royale de musique’, volume 2, 481.

52 ‘Lettres patentes en faveur de Jean-Baptiste Lully’, March 1672, cited in Serre, ‘L'Académie royale de musique’, volume 2, 464–466.

53 Garrioch, The Making of Revolutionary Paris, 130.

54 For 1750–1751 and 1751–1752 see AN AJ13 1, IX: ‘Repertoire du Theatre pour l'année’. The second of these is reproduced in Serre, ‘L'Académie royale de musique’, volume 2, 633–634. Discussions in Giuliani, Elizabeth, ‘Le public de l'Opéra de Paris de 1750 à 1760: mesure et définition’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 8/2 (1977), 166–167CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau, 66–67.

55 Resignations not noted by Serre, in L'Opéra de Paris (1749–1790): politique culturelle au temps des Lumières (Paris: CNRS, 2011), 25, 27Google Scholar. The ‘vexations’ they suffered were already mentioned in de La Borde, Jean-Benjamin, Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, four volumes (Paris: Eugène Onfroy, 1780), volume 1, 401Google Scholar, discussed in Rosow, Lois, ‘From Destouches to Berton: Editorial Responsibility at the Paris Opéra’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 40/2 (1987), 301CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Their court positions are mentioned in ‘Francoeur’ by Dünner, Béatrice in Dictionnaire de la musique en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, ed. Benoit, Marcelle (no place of publication known: Fayard, 1992)Google Scholar, and Dratwicki, Benoît, Antoine Dauvergne (1713–1797) (Wavre: Mardaga, 2011), 82Google Scholar.

56 Broader areas of information in the Inventaire, with information on Rameau, and Rousseau, , will appear in my ‘Politics and Payments at the Paris Opéra, 1749–1757’, in Essays in Memory of Frank Dobbins, ed. Colin, Marie-Alexis (Turnhout: Brepols, in preparation)Google Scholar.

57 Giuliani, Elizabeth, Le public et le répertoire de l'Opéra à l'époque de Jean-Jacques Rousseau (microfiche edition of typed dissertation, Université de Paris X, 1971) (Paris: Hachette, 1976)Google Scholar. Its first chapter, somewhat shortened, was published as Giuliani, ‘Le public de l'Opéra de Paris de 1750 à 1760’.

58 de Voyer de Paulmy d'Argenson, René-Louis, Journal et mémoires du Marquis d'Argenson publiés pour la première fois, ed. Rathery, E. J. B., nine volumes (Paris: Veuve Jules Renouard, 1859–1867), volume 8, 288–289Google Scholar.

59 Inventaire, 55, 70, 74; thus ‘no one knows who's in charge, so no one obeys’ (‘on ne sait qui commande, aussi personne n'obéit’): Collé, Charles, Journal et mémoires, ed. Bonhomme, Honoré, three volumes (Paris: Firmin-Didot Frères, 1868; reprinted Geneva: Minkoff, 1967), volume 2, 67Google Scholar (January 1757).

60 Heartz, Music in European Capitals, 710.

61 D'Argenson, Journal et mémoires, volume 8, 216. We return to this episode later. Easter was on 14 April in 1754, and so theatres closed from the end of March.

62 Charlton, , Opera in the Age of Rousseau, 20–24, 198–199, and ‘Rousseau and Favart at Fontainebleau, Pergolesi at Versailles’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 32/4 (2009), 591–605CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The feeling of sheer competition in about June 1752 between the Paris Opéra and managers of the Fontainebleau season is vividly described in Book Eight of Rousseau's Les Confessions: Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Confessions, trans. Scholar, Angela (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 366Google Scholar.

63 Mackenzie, ‘The Creation of a Genre’, 301, 307, 332, and Di Profio, ‘Projet pour une recherche’, 101, table 2.

64 Deck, Pantaléon, Histoire du théâtre français à Strasbourg (1681–1830) (Strasbourg: Le Roux, 1948), 39–42Google Scholar.

65 La Laurencie, ‘La grande saison italienne’, 8/6 (June 1912), 22.

66 Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 28, quoting AN, MC, LXX, 369; La Laurencie, ‘La grande saison italienne’, 8/6 (June 1912), 22, citing F-Po Rés. 516, the ‘Amelot’ manuscript: ‘Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de l'Académie royale de musique [1669–1758]’, f. 194. Incidentally, the Grand Théâtre in Rouen was not built until 1776.

67 See Di Profio, ‘Projet pour une recherche’, 97–102, for a detailed overview of these singers’ recent activity and the later participation of Francesco Guerrieri, Antonio Lazzari, Anna Lazzari, Maria Lepri, Giovanna Rossi and Caterina Tonelli.

68 Annonces, affiches et avis divers No. 13 (26 July 1752), reproduced in Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 26. This was the weekly journal edited by Louis Coste de Pujolas and Gabriel Meusnier de Querlon from 1752, later known as Petites affiches or Affiches de Province. It was not the bi-weekly journal of the same name, which is discussed later in the present article (not used by Fabiano).

69 F-Po, Rés. 516, f. 194: ‘In July 1752 Monsieur de Bernage, being informed that Mr Bambini had signed a contract with Mr Rousselet’ (‘Au mois de Juillet 1752, M. de Bernage étant informé que le Sr Bambini … avoit fait un Traité avec le S. Rousselet’); La Laurencie, ‘La grande saison italienne’, 8/6 (June 1912), 22.

70 Serre, ‘L'Académie royale de musique’, volume 3, 693. See also <http://chronopera.free.fr> (18 January 2013), derived from the foregoing source. See the sample programmes in Fend, Michael, ‘An Instinct for Parody and a Spirit for Revolution: Parisian Opera, 1752–1800’, in The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Music, ed. Keefe, , 297–298Google Scholar.

71 Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 29.

72 Serre, ‘L'Académie royale de musique’, volume 3, 694.

73 Dancers representing Spaniards, Poles, Turks and Venetians eventually succumb to French dance: La scaltra governatrice, dramma giocoso per musica in tre atti, con balli (Paris: Veuve Delormel & Fils, 1753), 130–131.

74 Another event may have been influential: Rebel and Francoeur, who took the run-through of Le devin du village, probably on 24 June, obviously knew that Charles Duclos (representing Jean-Jacques Rousseau) wanted the Opéra to have it; but Duclos was obliged to cede the premiere to the Fontainebleau court opera: Rousseau, , Les Confessions ed. Grosrichard, Alain, two volumes (Paris: Flammarion, 2002), volume 2Google Scholar, book 8, 119, 491, note 91.

75 Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 26–27. The misleading details stemmed from Dussieux, Louis and Soulié, Eudoxe, eds, Mémoires du Duc de Luynes sur la Cour de Louis XV 1735–1758, seventeen volumes (Paris: Didot, 1860–1865), volume 12, 195Google Scholar.

76 ‘Repertoire du Theatre pour l'année 1751 à 1752’, AN, AJ13 1.IX: facsimile in Serre, ‘L'Académie royale de musique’, volume 2, 633–634.

77 Giuliani, ‘Le public de l'Opéra’, 163.

78 Inventaire, 31: ‘Arreté du Bureau pour L'arrangement des piéces du Theatre depuis le 11 aoust 1752 jusques au 3 Septembre suivant’ (‘Order from the Bureau concerning the selection of theatre works from 11 August 1752 to the following 3 September’).

79 de Boislisle, A., ed., Lettres de M. de Marville, lieutenant général de police, au Ministre Maurepas (1742–1747), three volumes (Paris: H. Champion, 1896–1905), volume 2, 90Google Scholar.

80 This structural link is not taken into account when Fabiano describes the hypothetical influence of Opéra-Comique supporters in ending the bouffon residence: Histoire de l'opéra italien, 42–43.

81 Serpilla e Baiocco [various forms of title exist] and Don Mico e Lesbina: Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 23, and Troy, Charles, The Comic Intermezzo (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1979), 46, 49, 56Google Scholar.

82 King, Richard and Willaert, Saskia, ‘Giovanni Francesco Crosa and the First Italian Comic Operas in London, Brussels and Amsterdam, 1748–1750’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 118/2 (1993), 246–275CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 28, citing AN, AJ13 III and Annonces, affiches & avis divers, 49, 5 December 1753, which I have not been able to consult: this was a weekly journal. Also covering commercial information, prices, sales of property (sometimes music) and theatre announcements was another journal of almost identical name to begin with (Affiches, annonces et avis divers; henceforth AAA) but completely separate from it: a twice-weekly journal, edited by Jean-Louis Aubert (it can be consulted via <http://gazetier-universel.gazettes18e.fr>). Aubert's journal began in 1751 and is sometimes called Affiches de Paris: see Sgard, Jean, ed., Dictionnaire des journalistes, 1600–1789, two volumes (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1999), volume 1, 22, and volume 2, 715Google Scholar.

84 Labat-Poussin, Archives du Théâtre National de l'Opéra, 24.

85 Anna Lazzari, Antonio Lazzari, Giovanna Rossi and Francesco Guerrieri, required for La finta cameriera, La donna superba and La scaltra governatrice, as is mentioned in the printed librettos (all at Paris: Veuve Delormel & Fils): Di Profio, ‘Projet pour une recherche’, Table 1, and Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau, 252.

86 ‘Corps de Chasses par Extraordinaire’, upright bifolium giving dates of rehearsals and performances, introduced as follows: ‘Memorandum of all rehearsals and performances for which payments are due to Mssrs Schenker, the elder and the younger, employed as horn players in the intermezzos La donna superba, La scaltra governatrice and Le devin du village, at a rate for each man of six livres tournois per rehearsal and per performance, as they have been paid in the past when there was need of them at the Opéra’ (‘Mémoire de toutes les Répétitions et Représentations, dont les honoraires sont dus aux Srs Schencker l'ainé et cadet, pour les deux cors de Chasse employez aux Intermedes, de la femme orgueilleuse, de la Gouvernante Ruzée, et du Devin du Village, a raison pour chacun desdits Srs de 6lt par chaque répétition et par chaque représentation, comme il leurs a été payé par le passé lorsqu'on en a eu besoin à l'opera’).

87 Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 28.

88 Two entr'actes and one to finish: see note 73.

89 Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau, Figure 9.1.

90 Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 238; Giuliani, Le public et le répertoire, 77, lists four for Les voyageurs.

91 The following figures are derived from information in Giuliani, ‘Le public de l'Opéra’, 162. No box-office accounts survive for the period between Easter 1753 and Easter 1756. At the Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra the Registres CO 2/3/4 (Recettes à la porte) cover 29 April 1749 to 7 April 1753, then CO 5 resumes from 27 April 1756. Similarly, CO 536 (Journaux de recettes et de dépenses) for the year April 1751 to May 1752 is followed by a gap: CO 537 starts on 28 May 1756: Serre, ‘L'Académie royale de Musique’, volume 1, 33–34.

92 Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 31–32.

93 ‘because the intermezzo, Il paratajo, did not enjoy the degree of success that was hoped for it’ (‘La Pipée, Intermède Italien, n'ayant pas eu tout le succès qu'on en espéroit’): Mercure de France (November 1753), 169.

94 ‘Mr Manelli neither acted nor sang his role as one would have wished it. The experts found, among other things, that the aria Ad un povero polacco would have made more of an effect had it been better sung’ (‘M. Manelli n'a joué, ni chanté son rôle comme on l'auroit désiré. Les Connoisseurs trouvent entr'autres choses que l'ariette Ad un povero polacco auroit dû faire plus d'effet si elle eût été mieux chantée’): Mercure de France (June 1753), 158.

95 ‘On the sixteenth of last month the Opéra gave the intermezzo La zingara, which was a great success this summer, and whose revival the public greeted with equal satisfaction’ (‘L'Académie Royale de Musique a donné le Mardi 16 du mois dernier … l'Intermède de la Bohêmienne, qui avoit beaucoup réussi cet Eté, & dont le Public paroit également satisfait à la reprise’): Mercure de France (November 1753), 169.

96 Giuliani, Le public et le répertoire, repertory totals on 74–77.

97 Rousseau, Confessions, trans. Scholar, 375. Whether or not the Lettre ‘perhaps averted a revolution within the state’, as he claimed, is still debated.

98 D'Argenson, Journal et mémoires, volume 8, 211, 216. He makes it clear that ‘Some of the nobility such as the Duke and Duchess of Orléans, the comte de Clermont and several other great lords are strongly supporting the bouffons’ (‘Quelques princes, comme M. & Mme la duchesse d'Orléans, M. le comte de Clermont & quelques grands seigneurs protègent vivement les bouffons’) (211).

99 Collé, Journal et mémoires, volume 1, 396 (February 1754).

100 ‘Nouvelles littéraires’, Munich, Staatsbibliothek MS 400, f. 88 (1–15 February 1754), ed. J.-G. Prod'homme, ‘La musique à Paris, de 1753 à 1757, d'après un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque de Munich’, Sammelbände der internationalen Musikgesellschaft 6 (1904–1905), 572.

101 Thésée succeeded at Fontainebleau on 18 October, but was little praised in December: Chevrier, François-Antoine, Observations sur le théâtre: dans lesquelles on examine avec impartialité l'état actuel des Spectacles de Paris (Paris: Debure le Jeune, 1755; reprinted Geneva: Minkoff, 1971), 70–74Google Scholar. See Charlton, Opera in the Age of Rousseau, 208.

102 ‘The bouffons have just been dismissed, Monsieur. They owe the obligation for that to the tactless enthusiasm of their supporters. I am persuaded that they might have been kept on as a useful object of emulation for our composers’ (‘Les Bouffons viennent d'être renvoyés, Monsieur. Ils en ont l'obligation à la chaleur indiscrette de leur parti. Je suis persuadé qu'on les auroit conservés, comme un objet d'émulation utile pour nos Musiciens’): L'année littéraire, volume 1, Lettre xv, 336 (28 March 1754), quoted in Fabiano, Histoire de l'opéra italien, 41.

103 Inventaire, page 42: ‘Order from the Bureau for 4000 livres of indemnity to Mr Bambini, impresario of the Italian intermezzos’ (‘Arrêté du Bureau pour 4000 l[ivres] d'Indemnité au Sr Bambini entrepreneur des Intermedes Italiens’). One simply assumes that the Opéra doubled the contractual amount of indemnity.

104 There were complete scores, with recitative, of La serva padrona, Tracollo and La zingara and scores without recitative of Il giocatore, Il maestro di musica and Il cinese; there were score selections from La scaltra governatrice. Popular numbers in score from La serva padrona, Il giocatore and Il maestro di musica were retexted and issued in French to form Le jaloux corrigé (1753), a pasticcio by Charles Collé. On programming policy see Rosow, ‘Opera in Paris from Campra to Rameau’, 291.

105 ‘They say that Mr Rameau has written the music of a comic opera but do not know whether he will have it performed by the Paris Opéra, for he has no reason to be happy with the institution’ (‘On dit que M. Rameau a fait la Musique d'un opera bouffon mais on ignore s'il le fera jouer par l'academie Royale de Musique dont il n'a pas lieu d'etre content’): report for 7 August 1756 in Munich, Staatsbibliothek MS 405, ed. in Prod'homme, ‘La musique à Paris, de 1753 à 1757’, 587.

106 I offer many thanks to Mme Brigitte Schmauch, archivist at the Archives Nationales, for resolving the location of this document, classified with Arrêts belonging to the Secrétariat d'État de la Guerre, Marc-Pierre d'Argenson's main responsibility.