Louis XIV and his court - but also and especially Lully, the Couperin, Charpentier, Rameau - Philippe Beaussant taught us a lot about the characters, the music and the places that marked the 17th and 18th French centuries.
Philippe Beaussant left us thirty books, including his reference biography of Lully, Prix d'histoire de l'Académie française, from which the film «Le roi danse» was taken.
We owe him the foundation of the Institute of Ancient Music and Dance, the Center of Performing Arts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the Centre of Baroque Music of Versailles, a center of research, resources and training that the world envies us.
It was a formidable coherence of a life project that led him to succeed Jean-François Deniau at the Académie française and to receive the Prix de la langue française in 2001 for his entire work.
I extend my sincere condolences to his family and loved ones.