But to return to the original score which, as Rousseau himself informs us, wanted nothing when he arrived in Paris except what he calls the "_remplissage_" and the recitative. He had intended, he says, to have _Le Devin_ performed at the Opera, but M. de Cury, the intendant of the Menus Plaisirs, was determined it should first be brought out at the Court. A duel was very nearly taking place between the two directors, when it was at last decided by Rousseau himself, that Fontainebleau, Madame de Pompadour, and La Vaubalière should have the preference. Whether Granet had omitted to write recitative or not, it is a remarkable fact that recitative was wanted when the piece came to be rehearsed, and that Rousseau allowed Jéliotte, the singer, to supply it. This he mentions himself, as also that he was not present at any of the rehearsals--for it is at rehearsals above all, that a sham composer runs the chance of being detected. It is an easy thing for any man to say that he has composed an opera, but it may be difficult for him to correct a very simple error made by the copyist in transcribing the parts. However, Rousseau admits that he attended no rehearsals except the last, and that he did not compose the recitative, which, be it observed, the singers required forthwith, and which had to be written almost beneath their eyes. But what was Granet doing in the meanwhile? it will be asked. In the meanwhile Granet had died. And Pierre Rousseau and his friend M. de Bellissent? Rousseau, of Toulouse, supported by the Conservator of the Royal Library, accused Jean Jacques openly of fraud in the columns of the _Journal Encyclopédique_. These accusations were repeated on all sides, until at last Rousseau undertook to reply to them by composing new music to the _Devin du Village_. This new music the Opera refused to perform, and with some reason, for it appears (as the reader has seen) to have been detestable. It was not executed until after Rousseau's death, and at the special request of his widow, when, in the words of Grimm, "all the new airs were hooted without the slightest regard for the memory of the author." It is this utter failure of the second edition of the _Devin du Village_ which convinces me more than anything else that the first was not from the hand of Rousseau. But let us not say that he was "_un malhonnête homme_." Probably the conscientious author of the Contrat Social adopted the children of others by way of compensation for having sent his own to the Enfants Trouvés. CHAPTER X. GLUCK AND PICCINNI IN PARIS. Gluck at Vienna.--Iphigenia in Aulis.--A rehearsal at Sophie Arnould's.--Gluck and Vestris.--Piccinni in Italy.--Piccinni in Paris.--The two Iphigenias.--Iphigenia in Champagne.--Madeleine Guimard, Vestris, and the Ballet.