Murder, Humbug and Hypocrisy

Le "Bien-Aimé," Louis XV, if anybody was, was your typical non-connoisseur patron of music. He could carry a tune. He liked Jean-Jacques Rousseau--as a composer--and sometimes would sing ditties (they are scarcely arias) from Les Troqueurs and Le Devin du Village, memorable perhaps more for the words than the tunes; but sing them he did, in a pleasant baritone voice, and danced about while he did so, in the company of his intimates, in a most amusing fashion. He was, evidently, a sweet sort of man, but a man for all that, passionately fond of hunting, and with a robust, perhaps not overly fastidious, but thoroughly hygienic sexual appetite: His saying, "Préalablement au dentiste et à la bagnoire!" of the nymphs procured for him still causes Frenchmen who cherish his memory to chuckle.

Louis' choice, c. 1732, of Jean-Marie Leclair (May 10th, 1697 -- October 23rd, 1765) for his Ordinaire de la Musique and Premier Symphoniste was entirely suitable for so demanding a post.