The “Twenty-Four Violins” surpassed everything of the kind that had been known up to that time. They represented the greatest heights to which brilliancy and sonority could attain. The “Twenty-Four Violins” played in the Court entertainments; they played in the churches; they played in the gardens; they played on the lawns; and they played for the King and his Court to dance. They also frequently took part in the Court Ballets, when they were dressed in peculiar costumes with masques worn hind part before, so that they gave the ludicrous appearance of playing behind their backs. They played in the gilded and tapestry-hung galleries and Salons of Versailles and Marly and at the banquets of the King. And whenever they appeared they excited the greatest admiration. Although they were called the Twenty-Four Violins, the whole violin family was represented. There were violins, altos, tenors, basses and double-bass viols; and they played in four-part, or five-part harmony. “All these parts sounding together,” wrote Mersenne, “make a symphony so precise and agreeable that whoever hears the ‘Twenty-Four Violins’ of the King play all kinds of airs and dances, confesses willingly that he never heard such suave and delicious harmonies before.” Mersenne also remarked that the deeper instruments, particularly the basses, were much more sonorous and stronger in tone than the violins. We know of some of their names. There was Constantin; there was Lazarin; there was Bocan;[41] there was Foucard; and there was Léger. “What could be more elegant than Constantin’s playing?” cries Mersenne. “What could be warmer and more fiery than Bocan’s style? What could be more ingenious and delicate than the diminutions of Lazarin and Foucard? And if you add Léger’s bass above Constantin’s part, you will hear the most perfect harmony.” [Illustration: CHAMBER MUSIC IN 1635 _By Abraham Bosse_] Perhaps, if we could hear the gentlemen represented on page 160 draw his bow, we should think his tone very thin and we might not be at all enthusiastic over the style of his playing; but we must remember our ears hear very differently from those that listened to Bocan and Constantin and have been educated along other lines. But certainly the contemporaries of the “Twenty-Four Violins” considered that they were supreme artists. And literature is full of allusions to them. We also know that Guillaume Dumanoir was first a member and than conductor of the “Twenty-Four Violins.” Sometimes the King sent his “Twenty-Four Violins” to play for his great princes and favorite courtiers. We learn from a contemporary poem that at a superb dinner given by Cardinal Mazarin in 1660, “the feast was fine, joy universal and the ‘Twenty-Four Violins’ played while we ate melons, _pâtés_, tarts, _biscuit_ and dishes of delicious fruit piled up like obelisks. We enjoyed ourselves immensely while they played a thousand beautiful airs.”