On December 15, 1775, there was born in Rouen a composer who was to leave an indelible imprint of his abilities upon the operatic music of France. At the beginning of his career there was nothing in his circumstances that could have presaged his future greatness. He was the son of the secretary of Archbishop Larochefoucauld, and his mother kept a small millinery store in the old-fashioned city. His parents did not enjoy perfect conjugal felicity, and finally their quarrels led to a divorce, soon after which the father married again. The young Boieldieu was designed for a musical career, and his father soon sent him to the cathedral as a choir-boy. In those days music was frequently made a matter of apprenticeship, and was studied almost as if it had been a handicraft; it is therefore not surprising to find the lad indentured to the cathedral organist Broche, who led him a sorry life. Those who are familiar with the early life of Haydn will recall how that composer was forced for a time to be merely the lackey of Porpora; Boieldieu was in still worse case, for his master was both a drunkard and a martinet, and many a corporal punishment was inflicted on the apprentice merely because of errors in musical exercises. It seems strange that the rough induction into the art did not cause the lad to hate music and finally desert it, but, as was the case with Beethoven, the tears of childhood only seem to have cemented the foundation of his education. Broche made the curriculum hard and dry enough, and the companions of the lad (“le petit Boiel” they called him then) added to his discomforts by laughing at his shyness and awkward ways.