laborator, and later the enemy, of Moliere. His contract of marriage
was signed by the king, queen, and the queen-mother. Of his marriage,
Fetis says: "Never was a union better arranged, for if Lully was quick
to procure riches, his wife knew how to fructify them by the order and
the economy that reigned in her house. Lully reserved for his _menus
plaisirs_ only the price of the sale of his works, which amounted
annually to seven or eight thousand francs."

His dissipations, like those of Haendel, were chiefly confined to
excesses in eating and drinking, but for all his doubtful fidelity to
his wife, he cannot have been an ideal husband, for he was of a miserly
disposition, and his temper was enforced by a ruthless brutality. On one
occasion the singer Rochis, being in a condition that compelled a
postponement of "Armide," he demanded, angrily, "_Qui t'a fait cela_?"
and gave her a kick _qui lui fit faire une fausse couche_. This poor
woman was revenged upon him by his own temper, for at the age of
fifty-four, while conducting his orchestra, he grew indignant, and in
wildly brandishing his baton struck his own foot so fierce a blow that
gangrene set in and he died of the wound. While he was on his death-bed,
he was called upon by one of his old friends, whom his wife reproached
with having been the last to get him drunk. Whereupon the dying man
spoke up with the gaiety for which he was famous, "That's true, my dear,
and when I get well he shall be the first to get me drunk again."

In his will he named his wife as executrix, and took great care that she
and the children should preserve the royal monopoly in the Academy of
Music. Lully had been reconciled only eight days before his death, with
his son, whom he had previously disinherited. His wife outlived him
twenty-three years, and died May 3, 1720, at the age of seventy-seven.

When the superb mausoleum was built for Lully by his widow, some unknown
poet, who hated him for his _moeurs infames_, scrawled on his tomb these
terrific lines:

"Pourquoi, par un faste nouveau,
Nous rappeler la scandaleuse histoire
D'un libertin, indigne de memoire,
Peut-etre meme indigne du tombeau."

It was in some of his operas, I believe, that certain roles were sung by
Mlle. de Maupin, whose incredibly wild, scandalous, and ambiguous love
affairs, and duels in male costume, made the material for Gautier's
famous romance.

THE TACITURN RAMEAU

The next great master in F