So this group, which had no influence on their own contemporaries, nevertheless, without knowing it or wishing to do so, played a useful role.
As we know, the public was divided into two camps.

On one side were the partisans of Melody, opera-comique, the Italians, and, with some effort, of grand opera.

Opposed to them were the partisans of music in the grand style--Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and Sebastian Bach, although he was little known and is less well known now.
No one gave a thought to our old French school, to the composers from Lulli to Gluck, who produced so many excellent works.

Reber showed Delsarte the way and the latter, naturally an antiquarian, threw himself into this unexplored field with surprising vigor.

Only Lulli's name was known, while Campra, Mondonville and the others were entirely forgotten.