Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/64

 the expiration of the contract which bound him to the chapter of the cathedral, he could not persuade the canons to give him his freedom with a good grace, whereupon (such is the tradition) he took the heroic course of making himself intolerable by playing the organ in an appalling fashion. However, the same tale is told about his brother Claude who was an organist at Dijon, so the matter is open to doubt.

From Clermont he proceeded to Paris, where he was to gain his livelihood from two posts as organist, one with the Fathers of Mercy, the other with the Jesuits of the Rue St. Jacques. Here begins the part of his career of which very little is known. It has been impossible to ascertain the exact duration of this stay in Paris, during which he did not acquire fame. It is only known that he afterwards spent some months at Dijon with his family in 1715, and that he lived some time at Lyon, though it is not known what post he occupied in that town. We find trace of him again at Clermont, whither he returned; the canons cannot have had too unkind a memory of his escapade (assuming that it is not a myth), seeing that they gave him back his post as organist. Clermont boasts therefore two great musicians, in two different branches of music, its organist Rameau and its bishop Massillon. It was there that the Treatise on Harmony was completed, the fruit of twenty years of reflection and work, "a very large volume—too large, reeking of the provinces and solitude," as M. Laloz expressively writes—but it was a volume full of genius and discoveries, and it only remained to launch it in the world. Rameau now felt that fame was close at hand, and set off, with no intention of turning back, for Paris. In 1723 we find him definitely established there.