Anonymous manuscript, in French, by the 'Doyen de la Musique du Roi', listing those 'Musiciens du Roi' alive and dead in 1815, and giving the 'Apostile de M. de Rohan a ma demande de Bibliotécaire [sic] honoraire'.

Author: 
[La Musique du Roi (the King's Music); Monsieur de Rohan; Bourbon France]
La Musique du Roi (the King's Music)
Publication details: 
[Circa 1815.]
£450.00
SKU: 9782

12mo, 8 pp. Fair, on aged laid paper. On four leaves removed from a pocket book, with two leaves numbered in manuscript '41' and '42'. Apparently a first-person draft of information for an appeal by the oldest surviving member (from the inception of the group) for a stipend. Begins 'Depuis le commencement de l'an 1760 que j'ai ete recu a la Musique du Roi, j'ai été en exercice jusqu'en 1792, avec 222. sujets qui s'y sous dont 40 vivant encore au 18 Janvier 1815. [...]'. There follow a 'Liste des Morts' (grouped under office or instrument) and a one, with dates, of 'Musiciens du Roi, vivante au 1er. Janvier 1815.' Also a list of 'Musiciens de la Chambre' dead since 1761. The numerical 'Resultas' are given, with a short note, in the first person, on the exclusion from the list of the 'femmes du Cour de la Reine'. De Rohan's brief 'Apostile' approves the 'Doyen''s appeal, 'a cause des services et de l'age'. One authority briefly explains the origins the Musique du Roi: 'Until 1761 the performance of sacred and secular music for the king were entrusted to separate bodies, each part of the ecclesiastical and civil households. In 1761 both were merged and the position of grand-maître de la chapelle-musique was eliminated.''