Tired of hearing the same thing repeated so many times, the ladies at last turned round and said, "It is really not so bad. The author is a man of considerable wit; it is written by M. de la Fontaine."
"_Cela ne vaut pas le diable_," replied the _librettist_, "and this Lafontaine of whom you speak is an ass. I am Lafontaine, and ought to know."
After the first act he left the theatre and went into the Café Marion, where he fell asleep. One of his friends came in, and surprised to see him, said--"M. de la Fontaine! How is this? Ought you not to be at the first performance of your opera?"
The author awoke, and said, with a yawn--"I've been; and the first act was so dull that I had not the courage to wait for the other. I admire the patience of these Parisians!"
Compare this with the similar conduct of an English humourist, Charles Lamb, who, meeting with no greater success as a dramatist than Lafontaine, was equally astonished at the patience of the public, and remained in the pit to hiss his own farce.
Colasse, Lafontaine's composer, and Campistron, one of Lulli's librettists--when Quinault was not in the way--occasionally worked together, and with no very favourable result. Hence, mutual reproaches, each attributing the failure of the opera to the stupidity of the other. This suggested the following epigram, which, under similar circumstances, has been often imitated:--
"Entre Campistron et Colasse, Grand débat s'émeut au Parnasse, Sur ce que l'opéra n'a pas un sort heureux. De son mauvais succès nul ne se croit coupable. L'un dit que la musique est plate et misérable, L'autre que la conduite et les vers sont affreux; Et le grand Apollon, toujours juge équitable, Trouve qu'ils ont raison tous deux."
Quinault was by far the most successful of Lulli's librettists, in spite of the contempt with which his verses were always treated by Boileau. Boileau liked Lulli's music, but when he entered the Opera, and was asked where he would sit, he used to reply, "Put me in some place where I shall not be able to hear the words."
[Sidenote: THE FIDDLE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]
Lulli must have had sad trouble with his orchestra, for in his time a violinist was looked upon as merely an adjunct to a dancing-master. There was a king of the fiddles, without whose permission no cat-gut could be scraped; and in selling his licenses to dancing-masters and the musicians of ball-rooms, the ruler of the bows does not appear to have required any proof of capacity from his clients. Even the simple expedient of shifting was unknown to Lulli's violinists, and for years after his death, to reach the C above the line was a notable feat. The pit quite understood the difficulty, and when the dreaded _démanchement_ had to be accomplished, would indulge in sarcastic shouts of "_gare l'ut! gare l'ut!_"