e society to playing the musette found its first results in the "Traité de la musette, avec une nouvelle méthode pour apprendre soy-même á jouer de cet instument facilement et en peu de Temps" [trans JW: "Treatise on the musette, with a new method to teach oneself to play this instrument easily and in a short time"], by Charles-Emmanuel Borjon, appearing 1672 in Lyon [fn].
Although the musette was hard to play, it remained popular among the aristocratic amateurs during the entire 17th century. Under Louis XIV there existed a special division of royal music in the so-called "Bande de la Grande Ecurie". Each of the 25 musicians of this band had to master two instruments. Besides flutists, oboists, drummers, kettle-drummers, and trumpeters (among whom since 1679 there were also crumhorn players and tromba marina players) in this ensemble there were four musette players who had been engaged from the Poitou [fn].
Aside from the large Marstall band [?? original text has "Marstallkapelle"] for outdoor performances the musette was also used for other occasions. At a memorable festivity, which was given in 1688 the Prince of Condé in Chantilly in honour of the Dauphin Louis, the host appeared as Pan accompanied by a procession whose members were costumed as shepherds or shepherdesses or as satyrs. They all danced and leaped to the sound of oboes, bagpipes and similar instruments [fn]. Jean Baptiste Lully used the musette in some works, in which he wanted to show the pastoral character of a scene on the stage [fn].
In the last third of the 17th century the hurdy-gurdy was also received into the instrumentarium of courtly society. The introduction of the hurdy-gurdy into the aristocracy is often viewed as a curiosity, but it is to be considered simply as a consequence of the adoption of the musette, without the popularity of which the sudden prestige of the hurdy-gurdy could not be explained.
There are above all two things that smoothed the hurdy-gurdy's way into society. The musette which had been familiar to the aristocracy for some decades already had indeed been improved upon, but had not been robbed of its inherent character of sound: it maintained even as a social instrument its constantly sounding drone pipes.
Since the sustained tones of the hurdy-gurdy are like those of the bagpipes, and its drone sound was familiar to the members of courtly society for a long time, there was no trouble in making the court society accustomed to the sound of the hurdy-gurdy.
Considered from the point of view of repertoire it was favorable for the instrument that a preference for dances and small musical forms existed, from the "Ballets de Cour" of Louis XIV through the 'comedie-ballets' of Lully to the first French operas in the last third of the 17th century.
Thus the sudden enthusiasm of the court is understandable, when towards 1680 the itinerant hurdy-gurdy players La Roze and Janot emerged, whose repertoire consisted mainly of contredanses, menuets and entreés. La Roze was not a particularly good musician, but he understood how to present these popular dances in a pleasing manner, and he sang vaudevilles to the accompaniment of the hurdy-gurdy. The second of these itinerant hurdy-gurdy players, Janot, could play and sing even better than La Roze. Besides dances and vaudevilles he also played the most well-known pieces from Lully's operas [fn]. The members of the court were enthused, so that La Roze and Janot could establish themselves as teachers and instruct a great number of students.
It is not to be thought that La Roze and Janot were
the first hurdy-gurdy players who found an ear in the court. There were certainly numerous hurdy-gurdy players in the streets of Paris, although they probably did not attract attention because they did not play the hurdy-gurdy as it was used in the provinces as these two musicians did. If the hurdy-gurdy players were not previously noticed despite the fact that the musette and its drone sounds had already been popular for a long time, then this can only be grounded on the supposition that not only the 