FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 488 to our time, this scorn for the drama. In the eigh- teenth century they went so far as to make up operas with pieces of music taken here and there. The Ital- ian music was preserved only in opera buffa, composed to comic speeches. The opera was perfected in France and in Germany, In 1669 Louis XIV. granted to two managers per- mission to establish in Paris an academy, in order to represent there and sing in public, operas and musical dramas in French verse like those in Italy. The first French opera, "Cadmus and Hermione," was played in 1673.