Poor Dracon had a sad love-story. A woman fell in love with him—not an unusual thing to happen with Philbert—but she poisoned her husband so that nothing might stand in the way of marrying him. At the last moment she confessed her crime; and she was hanged and burned in the old _Place de Grève_ in Paris. Philbert was perfectly innocent; but he, doubtless, suffered terribly—poor fellow! An artist’s life is not always a happy one! Both Descoteaux and Philbert were great favorites of Louis XIV. As the Philidor and Hotteterre families were renowned for their skill on the flute, oboe and bassoon, some of them, undoubtedly, played in Lully’s Orchestra. These families were famous in musical Paris for generations. One of the bassoons was La Bas. He married an opera-singer, named Mlle. Le Rochois. The marriage was somewhat unusual. Mr. Bassoon wrote his promise to marry the lady on the back of a card—the Queen of Spades (_Pique Dame_) and then he tried to get out of it; but the lady showed the Queen of Spades to Lully; and Lully made Mr. Bassoon keep his promise. Conductors have many duties! One of the first violins, Verdier, was also the husband of an opera-singer; but we do not know the story of his marriage. Then there was Jean Baptiste Marchand, who played the lute and also the violin. He wrote such a fine Mass that it was performed in the noble old cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris. Then there was Teobaldo di Gatti, a native of Florence, who was so charmed with the “symphonies” in some of Lully’s operas that he had heard (and perhaps played in) that he went to Paris in 1676 especially to see Lully. As soon as he arrived, he hurried to call on the great composer and conductor and told him why he had taken the journey. Lully was highly flattered; and, after hearing him play, he recognized his ability and gave him a place in the Orchestra at once. And here Teobaldo, the _basse de viol_, played for fifty years! He died in 1727, playing in the Orchestra up to the last. Teobaldo was a very well-known figure in Paris; and everybody went to hear his opera, _Scylla_, when it was performed in Paris. Perhaps the best musicians in all this Orchestra of _virtuosi_ were the two violinists, Lalouette and Collasse, and the bass violist, Marais, whose snap-shot of a fellow-member is quoted on page 165. Each of these three artists became Lully’s assistant conductor.