Besides Sainte-Colombe there were at that time two able French gamba players--namely, Desmarets and Baisson. Marais, however, excelled them in artistic execution. He added to the six strings of the instrument tuned in the accepted manner-- [Illustration] also a seventh, the A of the “contra octave.”[28] This enabled him to surpass in harmonised playing all his predecessors and contemporaries. He was the first who caused the lowest strings of the gamba to be cased in metal wire so as to give them greater tension and resonance, a step in advance which was soon adopted for the two lower strings of the violoncello. Besides some operas, Marais was the author of a considerable number of gamba compositions which appeared in five parts. The fifth of them, for one and two gambas with a bass, was printed in 1705. Out of his nineteen children, three sons and a daughter devoted themselves to the study of the gamba. Amongst them the most distinguished for his performances was ROLAND MARAIS. In the year 1725 he succeeded his father as solo gambist at the Royal Chamber Music Concerts, the prospect of which had been assured to him some years previously. Quantz, who heard him in 1726, reported him as a very skilful player. He published, in 1711, a “Nouvelle méthode de musique,” and in the years 1735 and 1738 two volumes of gamba pieces with figured bass. The Sainte-Colombe mentioned above had, besides Marais, two noteworthy pupils, ROUSSEAU and HERVELOIS. Jean Rousseau perfected himself as a distinguished gamba player, and was actively engaged in Paris during the second half of the seventeenth century. He also made himself more widely known by the production of two “livres de pièces de viole,” as well as a gamba school, “Traité de la viole.” The latter work appeared in Paris in 1687. CAIX DE HERVELOIS, born about 1670, became, under the direction of Sainte-Colombe, an excellent player, and after further study entered the service of the Duke of Orleans. In Amsterdam he had two books of his compositions published: “Pièces pour la basse viole avec la basse continue.” Another French gambist of distinction in the seventeenth century was Antoine Forqueray. He was born in 1671 in Paris, and was one of the performers at the chamber music Concerts of Louis XIV. Forqueray received instruction from his father. At the age of five years he already excited the astonishment of the king by his performances, who called him “his little wonder.” In the year 1745, on June 28, he died at Nantes, whither he had retired upon his pension.