[319] _Conf._, viii. 197. Grimm, _Corr. Lit._, i. 27.
[320] _Lettre sur la Musique Française_, 178, etc., 187.
[321] P. 197.
[322] _Corr. Lit._, i. 92. His own piece was _Le petit prophète de
Boehmischbroda_, the style of which will be seen in a subsequent
footnote.
[323] He was burnt in effigy by the musicians of the Opera. Grimm,
_Corr. Lit._, i. 113.
[324] This is Turgot's opinion on the controversy (Letter to Caillard,
_Oeuv._, ii. 827):--"Tous avez donc vu Jean-Jacques; la musique est un
excellent passe-port auprès de lui. Quant à l'impossibilité de faire
de la musique française, je ne puis y croire, et votre raison ne me
paraît pas bonne; car il n'est point vrai que l'essence de la langue
française est d'être sans accent. Point de conversation animée sans
beaucoup d'accent; mais l'accent est libre et déterminé seulement par
l'affection de celui qui parle, sans être fixé par des conventions sur
certaines syllabes, quoique nous ayons aussi dans plusieurs mots des
syllabes dominantes qui seules peuvent être accentuées."
[325] Musset-Pathay, i. 289.
[326] Preface to _Dissertation sur la Musique Moderne_, pp. 32, 33.
[327] I am indebted to Mr. James Sully, M.A., for furnishing me with
notes on a technical subject with which I have too little
acquaintance.
[328] _Dissertation_, p. 42.
[329] P. 52.
[330] _Conf._, vii. 18, 19. Also _Dissertation_, pp. 74, 75.
CHAPTER IX.
VOLTAIRE AND D'ALEMBERT.
Everybody in the full tide of the eighteenth century had something to do
with Voltaire, from serious personages like Frederick the Great and
Turgot, down to the sorriest poetaster who sent his verses to be
corrected or bepraised. Rousseau's debt to him in the days of his
unformed youth we have already seen, as well as the courtesies with
which they approached one another, when Richelieu employed the
struggling musician to make some modifications in the great man's
unconsidered court-piece. Neither of them then dreamed that their two
names were destined to form the great literary antithesis of the
century. In the ten years that elapsed between their first interchange
of letters and their first fit of coldness, it must have been tolerably
clear to either of them, if either of them gave thought to the matter,
that their dissidence was increasing and likely to increase. Their
methods were different, their training different, their points of view
different, and above all these things, their temperaments were different
by a whole heaven's breadth.
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