What I am about to tell you happened a long time ago in France. If you're preoccupied with how I know what I am about to tell you, you're asking the wrong question ... just try to focus on what I am about to tell you, ok? Here goes:
 |
| Jean Phillipe Rameau, 1760 |
Jean Phillipe Rameau (hereunder simply called Rameau) was born in Dijon into a family of musicians and, naturally, became a musician himself. He had brothers and sisters of which only one brother plays a (minor) role in what I am about to tell you.
Rameau had his first sexual experience after he turned twenty-four (which was about ten years later than the average age of the French males of his time) and was so deeply and utterly disgusted by the act that he remained celibate for the rest of his life.
While Rameau was busy composing operas and writing treaties on musical theory, his younger brother Jean Christophe Rameau, a prosperous rice merchant, married the charming young German soprano Amanda Chloe Sturz. They had a son whom they named Jean Francois. The boy just turned sixteen when his parents died in a house fire and Rameau, the ever avuncular, took him in to try to raise him into a useful member of society. Jean Francois was more interested in nice clothes, fine dining and women and less in making France great for Bourbon Louis #fourteen and #fifteen.
Rameau knew what the nephew was like, but being busy, he didn't do much about it. He was thinking and hoping that it was just a stage that the youngster would soon outgrow. Uncle and nephew shared the house, the habit of smoking tabaco and the pleasure of taking long baths in fragrant, soapy, hot water. One mild October evening in 1752, after a long and luxurious bath, the nephew went to the dining room for a snack and a smoke. He was wearing his uncle's bathrobe and his new wig when a masked intruder climbed through a window and stabbed Jean Francois in the neck. The blade severed the internal carotid and he bled out in four minutes. Monsieur Nicolas Rene Berryer, Lieutenant General of Paris Police, personally conducted a vigorous investigation. A large number of suspects were arrested and questioned but still, the case remained unsolved ... which is exactly what I said that I am about to tell you and now, I did. Pauvre neveu!
