the French Revolution, is that notes inégales applies to all notes moving stepwise which have a duration of one quarter the denominator of the meter, for instance, eighth notes in a meter of , or sixteenth notes in a meter of ; and one half the denominator of the meter in cases of triple or compound meter, for instance, eighth notes in , sixteenth notes in , and . In addition, the inégales could only function on one metrical level; for example, if sixteenths are to be played long–short, long–short, an even eighth-note pulse must be carefully maintained for the music to retain its shape. In Georg Muffat's codification of notes inégales in the Lullist tradition, he says it is the first level of diminution that is subject to inequality procedure. Sometimes the notes inégales are notated as unequal, for example in some of the keyboard works of François Couperin, where he uses a dot to indicate the lengthened note. This and similar passages by Rameau (in his first Gavotte) clearly show that this means to apply an even greater amount of inequality to dotted eighth–sixteenth note pairs than to eighth–eighth pairs, which are already understood to be played unequally. The exact amount of inequality required is also unspecified, and most of the treatises leave this detail to the taste of the performer. It may have varied from double-dotted to minimally perceptible, depending on the context. Some recent papers and books include a full analysis of this topic as well as practical guides for the performer. Also, musical clocks have been discovered from the period that show the dotting very clearly as such devices have "preserved performances of notes inégales that are often as subtle as a 3:2 ratio (i.e. three fifths of a beat for the first note, two fifths for the second in the pair), as well as the more obvious 2:1 ratio (triplets), and 3:1 (dotted eighth–sixteenth pairs and their multiples). There were situations which were understood to be exempt from application of notes inégales. A broken arpeggiated figuration in the left hand, such as an Alberti bass, was always understood to be played regularly. Sometimes one sees the explicit marking: croches égales meaning equal quavers or eighth notes. Passages which mixed note values may have been exempted from the practice. Occasionally a long slur printed over a series of notes was understood to imply that all