Grimm, who always manifested great interest in musical matters, had become acquainted with Italian opera in Germany, and afterwards in Paris, where he took up his abode in 1749; his intercourse with Rousseau and other sympathetic friends increased his partiality for it. His burlesque of "Le Petit Prophète de Boehmischbroda" (1753), which foretold in the biblical prophetic style the downfall of good taste if Paris were not converted to Italian music,[13] proved a powerful ally to Italian music; he was joined by Diderot, who, like all the encyclopedists, was personally antagonistic to Rameau on account of his attack on the "Encyclopédie."[14] Jean Jacques Rousseau, who in his "Devin du Village" had shown the delighted public how far the treasures of the Italian opera could be turned to good account in the French (Vol. I., p. 87 et seq.), threw all the weight of his influence into the scale of the Bouffonists; not content with mercilessly exposing the shortcomings of the French opera, he undertook to prove that the French language was unfitted for composition, and French music altogether an impossibility.[15] The enraged musicians threatened to punish this daring outrage on the nation[16] with horsewhipping, assassination, or even the Bastille; but a flood of angry discussion was all that actually resulted.[17] Those, however, whose interests were {FRENCH OPERA.} (10) attacked, especially the proprietors and singers of the opera-house, took such measures as obliged the Italian singers to quit Paris in March, 1754.[18] It may well be wondered at that men like Rousseau[19] and Diderot,[20] who upheld simplicity and nature as the true canons of art, should have evinced a preference for Italian music. For though doubtless the Italian style was grounded originally on the nature of music, it had already become conventional, and far removed from what the philosophers called natural. At the same time it must be remembered that their partiality always turned in the direction of opera buffa, which sought from its commencement to free itself from the conventional restraint of opera seria (Vol. I., p. 203). Then, too, the musical element, as distinguished from the poetical or dramatic, had always been the foundation of Italian opera, and an opposition directed against the French opera, with its poetical and dramatic proclivities, would be sure to uphold the purely musical development of the Italians, even though the exaggerations into which it was carried might be displeasing to the philosophers. The influence of the Bouffons survived their departure. The Comédie Italienne (aux Italiens) produced Italian comedies in masquerade, French comedies, and parodies of qperas, the charm of which consisted mainly in their vocal parts, on which account they were called opéras comiques.[21] A dangerous rival to the Comédie Italienne was the Théätre de la Foire, whose representations took place originally on {OPÉRA COMIQUE--DUNI, 1757-1775.} (11)