[le cadet ] (b Paris, 21 [not 8 or 22] Sept 1698; d Paris, Aug 5, 1787). French composer. As an opera composer, director and administrator at the Paris Opéra and the French royal court in the mid- 18th century, he collaborated with François Rebel [le fils] (b Paris, 19 June 1701; d Paris, 7 Nov 1775). Francoeur entered the Opéra orchestra in 1710, and Rebel joined in 1714. There the two children acquired the lifelong nickname ‘les petits violons’. In 1726 their first Opera, Pirame et Thisbé, had its première at the Opéra and was a great success. Quantz attended a performance and remarked that one could tell from the music that the composers had been beyond the French borders; the reference was to a trip Rebel and Francoeur had made to Vienna and Prague in 1723. They continued to write operas in collaboration, and in ...