, a marshal in the French army, and a member of the French academy,
, a marshal
in the French army, and a member of the French academy,
and of many other literary societies, was born in 1734, of
a distinguished family. His military talents raised him to
the rank of brigadier-general, and he is said to have served
in that capacity with great reputation in America. Of his
military, however, we know less than of his literary career, which he pursued amidst all his public employments.
He had early in life a strong passion for poetry and music.
Many of his comedies, written for private theatres, and
heard with transport, might have been equally successful
on the public stages, had he had courage sufficient to make
the experiment. He was an officer in the French guards
in 1765, when he published his ingenious “Essay on the
Union of Poetry and Music.
” This essay was the
consequence of a voyage into Italy, where he seems to have
adopted an exclusive taste for the dramatic music of that
country, as Rousseau had done before. He even adopts
some of Rousseau’s ideas upon music; but in general he
thinks for himself, both deeply and originally. By his reflections on the musical drama, he not only offended the
musicians of France, but the lyric poets of every country;
not scrupling to assert that in an opera, music, which ought
to be the principal consideration, had been too long a slave
to syllables; for since the cultivation of the melo-drama,
it was found that music had its own language, its tropes,
metaphors, colouring, movements, passions, and expression of sentiment. This little tract, for it was but a
pamphlet of 90 or 100 pages, 12mo, gave birth to a long
controversy in France, in which the author was supported
by the abbe Arnaud, M. D'Alembert, the abb Morellet,
and M. Marmontel. His chief antagonist was the author
of a “Treatise on the Melo-Drama,
” who, loving poetry
better than music, wished to reduce the opera to a mere
recitative or musical declamation. During the subsequent
feuds between the Gluckists and Piccinists, the opponents
of the marquis de Chastellux enlisted with the former, and
his friends with the latter of these sects.