He’d only been dead a few years—died the year I ran away with Séranne. I remember the fuss. Louis, they said, was crazed with grief. The whole city went a bit silly. Lully, dead. And what a way to go. You know the story, I’m sure. Eh? Save me, Jesus, from ignorant priests. All right. Pay attention. It’s an instructive tale for musicians everywhere. One evening, poor old Lully was happily banging away on the floor with his conducting staff, as they do. His Te Deum, I think it was. In the church of the Feuillants in rue Saint-Honoré. People still leave flowers there in his honour. But on that day, he flew into a fury with the harpsichordist and flattened his own toe with a thump of the staff. Gangrene set in and off he popped. Embarrassing, I know, but people have died of simpler things. Look at me. Mad bastard he was, and greedy, but his was the only music Paris wanted to hear, the only performances the King would attend. New composers came and went, some of them dogs, some of them could have been better than Lully if anybody had ever given them the chance.
