France up to that time had produced. His last opera, "Les Paladins," was
given in 1760, the composer being then seventy-seven.

The bitterness of the art-feuds of that day, afterward shown in the
Gluck-Piccini contest, was foreshadowed in that waged by Rameau against
Lulli, and finally against the Italian newcomers, who sought to take
possession of the French stage. The matter became a natioual quarrel,
and it was considered an insult to France to prefer the music of an
Italian to that of a Frenchman--an insult which was often settled by the
rapier point, when tongue and pen had failed as arbitrators. The subject
was keenly debated by journalists and pamphleteers, and the press
groaned with essays to prove that Rameau was the first musician in
Europe, though his works were utterly unknown outside of France. Perhaps
no more valuable testimony to the character of these operas can be
adduced than that of Baron Grimm:

"In his operas Rameau has overpowered all his predecessors by dint of
harmony and quantity of notes. Some of his choruses are very fine.
Lulli could only sustain his vocal psalmody by a simple bass; Rameau
accompanied almost all his recitatives with the orchestra. These
accompaniments are generally in bad taste; they drown the voice rather
than support it, and force the singers to scream and howl in a manner
which no ear of any delicacy can tolerate. We come away from an opera
of Rameau's intoxicated with harmony and stupefied with the noise of
voice and instruments. His taste is always Gothic, and, whether his
subject is light or forcible, his style is equally heavy. He was not
destitute of ideas, but did not know what use to make of them. In his
recitatives the sound is continually in opposition to the sense, though
they occasionally contain happy declamatory passages.... If he had
formed himself in some of the schools of Italy, and thus acquired a