in 1750, and may be said at once to have founded the school of French opera comique.  Rousseau extolled its beauty as a protest against the arid declamation of the school of Lulli, and it was the subject of one of the bitterest dissensions ever known in the history of music.  But the ‘Guerre des Bouffons,’ as the struggle was called, proved one thing, which had already been satisfactorily decided in Italy, namely, that there was plenty of room in the world for serious and comic opera at the same time.

There had been a kind of opera comique in France for many years, a species of musical pantomime which was very popular at the fairs of St. Laurent and St. Gervais.  This form of entertainment scarcely came within the province of art, but it served as a starting-point for the history of opera comique, which was afterwards so brilliant.  The success of the Italian company which performed the comic operas of Pergolesi, Jomelli, and others, fired the French composers to emulation, and in 1753 the first French opera comique, in the strict sense of the word, ‘Le Devin du Village,’ by the great Rousseau, was performed at the Academie de Musique.  Musically the work is feeble and characterless, but the contrast which it offered to the stiff and serious works of the tragic composers made it popular.  Whatever its faults may be, it is simple and natural, and its tender little melodies fell pleasantly upon ears too well accustomed to the pomposities of Rameau and his school.  At first lovers of opera comique in Paris had to subsist chiefly upon translations from the Italian; but in 1755 ‘Ninette a la Cour,’ a dainty little work written by a Neapolitan composer, Duni, to a French libretto, gained a great success.  Soon afterwards, Monsigny, a composer who may well be called the father of opera comique, produced his first work, and started upon a career of success which extended into the next century.

The early days of opera comique in Paris were distracted by the jealousy existing between the French and Italian schools, but in 1762 peace was made between the rival factions, and by process of fusion the two became one.  With the opening of the new Theatre de l’Opera Comique—­the Salle Favart, as it was then called—­there began a new and brilliant period for the history of French art.  It is a significant fact, and one which goes far to prove how closely the foundation of opera comique was connected with a revolt against the boredom of grand opera, that the most successful composers in the new genre were those who were actually innocent of any musical training whatsoever.  Monsigny (1729-1817) is a particularly striking instance of natural genius triumphing in spite of a defective education.  Nothing can exceed the thinness and poverty of his scores, or their lack of all real musical interest; yet, by the sureness of his natural instinct for the stage, he succeeded in writing music which still moves us as much by its brilliant gaiety as by its tender pathos.  ‘Le Deserteur,’ his most famous work, is a touching little story of a soldier who deserts in a fit of jealousy, and is condemned to be shot, but is saved by his sweetheart, who begs his pardon from the king.  Much of the music is almost childish in its naivete, but there is real pathos in the famous air ‘Adieu, Louise,’ and some of the lighter scenes in the opera are touched off very happily.