Those who have written about him are unanimous in considering him an eccentric: his German translator (Erhard, 1951) called him "a somewhat sarcastic old gentleman"; his English translator (Jackson, 1973) said he had a "colorful and eccentric personality"; his only biographer (Fétis, 1863) tells us that when he learned that his treatise was to be published in Amsterdam, he was so transported with joy that he set off immediately (presumably from Paris), attired as he was when he received the news, in bathrobe, slippers, and nightcap. Despite his reputation for eccentricity and his purple prose, larded with mythological allusions, he provides a wealth of eyewitness information about eighteenth-century musical life. The treatise is divided into three parts.
