These subjects of music and opera still engaged my attention during my convalescence, but my ideas were less energetic.  Long and frequent meditations, and which were often involuntary, and made such an impression upon my mind that I resolved to attempt both words and music.  This was not the first time I had undertaken so difficult a task.  Whilst I was at Chambery I had composed an opera entitled ‘Iphis and Anaxarete’, which I had the good sense to throw into the fire.  At Lyons I had composed another, entitled ‘La Decouverte du Nouveau Monde’, which, after having read it to M. Bordes, the Abbes Malby, Trublet, and others, had met the same fate, notwithstanding I had set the prologue and the first act to music, and although David, after examining the composition, had told me there were passages in it worthy of Buononcini.

Before I began the work I took time to consider of my plan.  In a heroic ballet I proposed three different subjects, in three acts, detached from each other, set to music of a different character, taking for each subject the amours of a poet.  I entitled this opera Les Muses Galantes.  My first act, in music strongly characterized, was Tasso; the second in tender harmony, Ovid; and the third, entitled Anacreon, was to partake of the gayety of the dithyrambus.  I tried my skill on the first act, and applied to it with an ardor which, for the first time, made me feel the delightful sensation produced by the creative power of composition.  One evening, as I entered the opera, feeling myself strongly incited and overpowered by my ideas, I put my money again into my pocket, returned to my apartment, locked the door, and, having close drawn all the curtains, that every ray of light might be excluded, I went to bed, abandoning myself entirely to this musical and poetical ‘oestrum’, and in seven or eight hours rapidly composed the greatest part of an act.  I can truly say my love for the Princess of Ferrara (for I was Tasso for the moment) and my noble and lofty sentiment with respect to her unjust brother, procured me a night a hundred times more delicious than one passed in the arms of the princess would have been.  In the morning but a very little of what I had done remained in my head, but this little, almost effaced by sleep and lassitude, still sufficiently evinced the energy of the pieces of which it was the scattered remains.

I this time did, not proceed far with my undertaking, being interrupted by other affairs.  Whilst I attached myself to the family of Dupin, Madam de Beuzenval and Madam de Broglie, whom I continued to visit, had not forgotten me.  The Count de Montaigu, captain in the guards, had just been appointed ambassador to Venice.  He was an ambassador made by Barjac, to whom he assiduously paid his court.  His brother, the Chevalier de Montaigu, ‘gentilhomme de la manche’ to the dauphin, was acquainted with these ladies, and with the Abbe Alary of the French academy, whom I sometimes visited.  Madam de Broglie