e afterwards, I again saw the
collection open on the harpischord of M. d'Papinay, one day when he gave
a little concert. Neither Grimm, nor anybody else, ever spoke to me of
the air, and my reason for mentioning it here is that some time
afterwards, a rumor was spread that I was not the author of Devin.
As I never made a great progress in the practical part, I am persuaded
that had it not been for my dictionary of music, it would in the end have
been said I did not understand composition.

Sometime before the 'Devin du Village' was performed, a company of
Italian Bouffons had arrived at Paris, and were ordered to perform at the
opera-house, without the effect they would produce there being foreseen.
Although they were detestable, and the orchestra, at that time very
ignorant, mutilated at will the pieces they gave, they did the French
opera an injury that will never be repaired. The comparison of these two
kinds of music, heard the same evening in the same theatre, opened the
ears of the French; nobody could endure their languid music after the
marked and lively accents of Italian composition; and the moment the
Bouffons had done, everybody went away. The managers were obliged to
change the order of representation, and let the performance of the
Bouffons be the last. 'Egle Pigmalion' and 'le Sylphe' were successively
given: nothing could bear the comparison. The 'Devin du Village' was the
only piece that did it, and this was still relished after 'la Serva
Padroma'. When I composed my interlude, my head was filled with these
pieces, and they gave me the first idea of it: I was, however, far from
imagining they would one day be passed in review by the side of my
composition. Had I been a plagiarist, how many pilferings would have
been manifest, and what care would have been taken to point them out to
the public! But I had done nothing of the kind. All attempts to
discover any such thing were fruitless: nothing was found in my music
which led to the recollection of that of any other person; and my whole
composition compared with the pretended original, was found to be as new
as the musical characters I had invented. Had Mondonville or Rameau
undergone the same ordeal, they would have lost much of their substance.

The Bouffons acquired for Italian music very warm partisans. All Paris
was divided into two parties, the violence of which was greater than if
an affair of state or religion had been in question. One