The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-30 00:00:00

MEMORANDA OF A MUSICIAN.
b431)1•13y GEORGEJ. 0. ALLMANN.

7 4•J;.'17

" Notes, notes, forsooth, and noting !"
SIIAKSPERE.

No. XIII.
GIACOMO B.A.TTISTA. LULLI.
When lying on the bed of death, his confessor would
not grant him absolution in extremis unless he consented
to commit to the flames his last opera, Achille et Polizene,
as the only method of rescuing him from eternal per-
dition. With many heart-drawn sighs—for the soul of
the expiring musician clung furcibly to a work from
which he had expected to derive both fame and emolu-
ment, and which not without severe struggles it could
be induced to immolate—Lulli at last gave the required
acquiescence, at the same time pointing with his finger
to an escrutoire in which his cherished manuscript was
deposited. The confessor with eager hands cast it into
the jaws of the devouring element, and with a satisfac-
tion he took no care to conceal, watched its destruction
till the whole mass was reduced to cinders. He then
performed his promise, and after shriving the composer,
left him. But strange to relate, Lullt grew better, and
was soon thought to be out of danger. One day he was
honoured by a visit from one of the royal children of
Louis the Fourteenth. "Is it really true," he inquired
of Lulii, " that you have thrown your opera into the
fire?" The composer replied affirmatively. " How
foolish of you," rejoined the Prince, "to believe so
blindly the protestations of a false-hearted Jesuit, and at
the same time to destroy such music!" "Hush, hush!"
added Lulli in a solemn whisper, looking round the
apartment anxiously, as if he expected to meet the con-
demning glance of his father confessor, and yet with a
kind of cunning chuckle at having overreached him—
" Hush, hush! I knew what I was about, I have another
copy of it beneath my pillow !" Unfortunately
Lulls
suffered a relapse, and with the prospect of immediate.
dissolution before his eyes he became truly penitent for
the duplicity of which he had been guilty, and into such
an extremity of alarm and remorse did its remembrance
lead him, that he submitted to be laid on a bed of ashes,
with a cord round his neck, and in this penitent situation
openly acknowledged a deep sense 9f his recent trans-
gression. After this the perturbation of his soul de-
creased, and he became resigned to his approaching end.
When he felt his last moment was near he began sing-
ing in a weak voice a hymn, and expired as his lips
uttered the solemn and emphatic words, "Il faut
mourir, pecheur, ii faut mourir!" The cause of his
death was mortification, the result of an accident by
which he injured his foot severely while beating time to
aTe Deum (1687). Madame de Sevigr e, in a letter of
the 6th May, 1672, in which she gives an account of the
funeral ceremony of Chancellor Sequier, thus writes
concerning Lulli: —" As for his genius it is a thing
which cannot be expressed. In the music we had yes-
terday at the Royal Chapel Baptiste outdid himself.
His beautiful miserere was added on this occasion. We
had also a libera, at hearing which all eyes were in
tears." Sauteuil composed the epitaph on his magnifi-
cent monument in the Church of Petits Peres, where
Lulli expressed a desire to be interred. This epitaph
consisted of six Latin verses, the substance of which,
when translated, expressed—
" 0 Death, know we that thou west blind! but in striking
Lulli hest thou convinced us that thou art deaf also."