[88] The Abbé Perrin and his brother-in-law, the Marquis de Sourdéac, the first regular directors of opera in France, ruined themselves in less than three years through their expensive decorations and machinery. In 1672 Lulli and his son-in-law Francine obtained permission to manage another opera-house, but spent far less money on decorations than their predecessors had done. Our author calls Lulli “Amphion,” a Greek musician who is said to have built Thebes by the music of his lute.
[89] At that time there was a regular theatre for puppet-shows, founded by Pierre dʼAttelin, better known as Brioché.
[90] In 1670 Corneille and Racine had each a tragedy, Bérénice, represented; Pénélope, a tragedy of the Abbé Genest, was played in 1684.
[91] One of those busybodies is said to have been a certain M. Manse, engineer of the waterworks of Chantilly, the seat of the Condés; and he pretended to have chiefly organised the festival given by the Prince de Condé, a son of the great Condé and the father of La Bruyèreʼs pupil, the Duke de Bourbon, to the Dauphin, the son of Louis XIV., at Chantilly during the month of August 1688. This entertainment lasted eight days; hence the necessity of a theatre.
[92] The “hunt on the water” took place on the sixth day of the festival, when some living deer and other animals were thrown alive into a large lake, which the ladies, in boats, tried to catch by means of ropes, and which, when caught, were set at liberty.
[93] On the first day of the feast a splendid “collation” was given by the Prince to the Dauphin, at the cross-way of “La Table,” amidst a temple of verdure erected for the occasion. Any meal taken between the dinner and supper hours, or any festive repast, was called in Louis XIV.ʼs time a collation.
[94] “Another wonderful collation given in the Labyrinth of Chantilly,” says a note of La Bruyère. An engraving still exists of the table, its decorations and ornaments.
[95] This compliment to the Prince de Condé only appeared for the first time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689, when the whole court was still talking about the entertainment.
[96] This is said to be a hit at the partisans of Quinault, who could see no charms in anything except in his operas.
[97] In the original, esprit fort, which sometimes meant “a man who does not care for the opinions of the world,” and sometimes “a freethinker.”