 The opera was composed during the "Querelle des Bouffons", an argument between partisans of French and Italian music.Mondonville supported the former, and according to Théodore Lajarte, he was prompted to employ his native Languedoc dialect because he intended to consolidate his leadership of the French faction.The German-born critic Melchior Grimm, a supporter of Italian music (and therefore not an admirer of Mondonville), approved the use of the Occitan language, as it was closer to Italian and thus partly able to camouflage the insipidity of Mondonville's work.