sing the verdicts of the Court. The Queen determined never again to
give any marked countenance to new dramatic works. She reserved her
patronage for musical composers, and in a few years their art arrived at a
perfection it had never before attained in France.

It was solely to gratify the Queen that the manager of the Opera brought
the first company of comic actors to Paris. Gluck, Piccini, and Sacchini
were attracted there in succession. These eminent composers were treated
with great distinction at Court. Immediately on his arrival in France,
Gluck was admitted to the Queen's toilet, and she talked to him all the
time he remained with her. She asked him one day whether he had nearly
brought his grand opera of "Armide" to a conclusion, and whether it
pleased him. Gluck replied very coolly, in his German accent, "Madame, it
will soon be finished, and really it will be superb." There was a great
outcry against the confidence with which the composer had spoken of one of
his own productions. The Queen defended him warmly; she insisted that he
could not be ignorant of the merit of his works; that he well knew they
were generally admired, and that no doubt he was afraid lest a modesty,
merely dictated by politeness, should look like affectation in him.

[Gluck often had to deal with self-sufficiency equal to his own. He was
very reluctant to introduce long ballets into "Iphigenia." Vestris deeply
regretted that the opera was not terminated by a piece they called a
chaconne, in which he displayed all his power. He complained to Gluck
about it. Gluck, who treated his art with all the dignity it merits,
replied that in so interesting a subject dancing would be misplaced.
Being pressed another time by Vestris on the same subject, "A chaconne! A
chaconne!" roared out the enraged musician; "we must describe the Greeks;
and had the Greeks chaconnes?" "They had not?" returned the astonished
dancer; "why, then, so much the worse for them!"--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]

The Queen did not confine her admiration to the lofty style of the French
and Italian operas; she greatly valued Gretry's music, so well adapted to
the spirit and feeling of the words. A great deal of the poetry set to
music by Gretry is by Marmontel. The day after the first performance of
"Zemira and Azor," Marmontel and Gretry were presented to the Queen as she
was passing through the gallery of Fontainebleau to go to mass. The Queen
congratulated Gretry