In spite of Rameau’s unfriendly reserved nature, he won fame by force of his genius. He was as unlike Lully as two men could possibly have been. Rameau accepted favors from no one, and was generous in his attitude towards his fellow composers. He talked very little and was not popular. However, he was at the height of his career, when a company of Italian singers arrived in Paris (1752), and played _La Serva Padrona_ by Pergolesi. The fresh sparkling little opera took Paris by storm, and this was the beginning of a sharp fight known as the war of the buffoons (page 330), which divided Paris into two factions,—those who stood by Lully and Rameau, and those who wanted to see French opera replaced by the new Italian comic opera. “The charm of these light operas,” says Mary Hargrave in her little book, _The Earlier French Musicians_, “lay in the simplicity of their subjects, taken from scenes and persons in ordinary life, humorously treated. They came as a delightful relief after the stilted classical heroes and heroines, the threadbare episodes of gods and goddesses, the Greek and Roman warriors in tunics, with ribbons and helmets on powdered wigs, in short, all the artificial conventions of which people had at last grown unutterably weary.” Even the court was divided: Louis XV was on the side of French music, but the Queen was for the Italian, and crowds gathered nightly at the opera near the royal boxes, which were known as the “King’s corner,” and the “Queen’s corner.” Word bombshells were thrown from one camp into the other, and sometimes these became real insults! Poor Rameau! First he was the butt of the Lullyists because he was too modern, and now storms of abuse were heaped on his head because he was too old-fashioned! Nevertheless, to the end of his life his operas were received with great enthusiasm, and on one occasion when the old man of eighty was seen hiding in the corner of a box during one of his operas, he was called out with storms of applause. He was always very shy about appearing in public, applause embarrassed him, and no doubt much of his disagreeableness was due to his being bashful. Rameau looked upon his scientific studies as more important than his composing, and Bach, Handel and many other composers studied his theory work even when they were not great admirers of his compositions. We never hear his operas, but his lovely pieces for the harpsichord, many of which are out of his operas, are played in piano recitals and are unsurpassed as examples of the French dance suite. Following the fashion of his time, he gave his pieces amusing titles such as _The Call of the Birds_, _The Hen_, _The Whirlwinds_, _The Egyptian_. A list of his works show that he wrote 26 operas, 2 cantatas, 5 books on theory, and 4 volumes of harpsichord music. His death occurred in 1764, and all France mourned their “greatest composer” and for years held memorial services in his honor.