The most brilliant of the French violinists toward the end of the century was Pierre Gaviniès. Neither the exact date of his birth (1726 or 1728) nor his birthplace (Bordeaux or Paris) is known. From whom he received instruction remains wholly in the dark. But when Viotti came to Paris in 1782 Gaviniès was considered one of the greatest of living violinists. The great Italian is said to have called him the French Tartini; from which one may infer that in his playing he had copied somewhat the manner of the Italian players who, one after the other, made themselves heard in all the great cities of Europe. But, judging from his compositions, he was more given to brilliancy and effectiveness than Tartini; and though he may not be ranked among violinists like Lolli who had nothing but astonishing technique at their command, he was undoubtedly influential in giving to the French school its shining brilliance whereby it passed beyond the older classical traditions. His compositions are numerous, and they exerted no little influence upon the development of the art. Besides two sets of sonatas for violin and figured bass he published six concertos, three sonatas for violin alone (among them that known as _Le tombeau de Gaviniès_), the once famous _Romance de Gaviniès_, written while he was serving a sentence in prison after a more or less scandalous escapade, and finally the best known of his works, _Les vingt-quatre Matinées_. There were twenty-four studies, written after he was seventy years old, as if to show to what an extent the mastery of technical difficulties of fingering could be developed. Consequently they lack very deep feeling and meaning, and unhappily the difficulties in them are presented so irregularly that they are hardly of use as studies to any but the most advanced students. They have been re-edited by David since his death and published once again. The sonatas and concertos have failed to survive. Leclair, Pagin, Lahoussaye, and Gaviniès represent together the best accomplishment of the French violinists before the arrival of Viotti. Among others neither so famous nor so influential may be mentioned Joseph Touchemoulin (d. 1801), Guillemain (d. 1770), Antoine Dauvergne (d. 1797), L’Abbé Robineau, who published several pieces for violin about 1770, Marie Alexandre Guénin (d. 1819), François Hippolite Barthélémon (d. 1808), Leblanc (b. ca. 1750), and Isidore Berthaume (d. 1820). Little by little the French had developed the art of playing the violin and composing for it. The time was ripe in the last quarter of the eighteenth century for the founding of that great school of French art which was to exert a powerful and lasting influence upon the growth of violin music. And now the influence of Viotti comes into play.