Dramatic music has now established itself. The civilised world discovers with delight that this art has an unlimited capacity for expressing passion, and all the passions, even the highest, the purest, and this latter includes love. It has also been recognised that music can speak in its own words outside of the theatre, in a symphony, in a simple sonata, and that there exists no art so benevolent, so reposeful, and so reassuring to troubled souls. In spite of this, in spite of all, moralists have never been willing to throw down their weapons before music. Emanuel Kant was clearly hostile to it; he said, "It enervates man,"[193] and he turned away his disciples from its joys. Tolstoi has been unkind to it in the Kreutzer Sonata.
All forces can become dangerous; it depends on the "use made of them,"[194] and also upon the souls which receive the impulse; they must be of the calibre to support its force.
The action of music upon French society has never, so far as I know, been methodically studied in relation to its effects, both physical and moral. If a historian be found, he will issue from the psychological laboratories, scientifically equipped, in which the observer conceals the physician: on this condition only can he speak with authority.
BOILEAU
After the painting by H. Rigaud
The Grande Mademoiselle cared but little for music. Nevertheless she extols Lulli in her Mémoires: "He makes the most beatific airs in the world." The glory of Baptiste touched her because he was "her own," arriving from Italy some time before the Fronde. "He came to France with my late uncle the Chevalier de Guise. I had prayed him to bring me an Italian, with whom I could speak and learn the language."
Lulli was only a boy of thirteen at the time that he was brought to France. Between the Italian lessons, he filled the office of cook. Later, admitted among the violins of Mademoiselle, it is related that he was chased away for having satirised his mistress in song. This recalls other events:
I was exiled: he did not wish to live in the country: he demanded leave to go away: I accorded it, and since he has made his fortune, for he is a great merry-andrew.