ABSTRACT
Accounts of Gretry's death were carefully controlled by two principal eyewitnesses, the librettist Jean-Nicolas Bouilly and Louis-Victor Flamand-Gretry, husband of Ernestine, one of the composer's nieces. Neither was an impartial or trustworthy narrator; both had an interest in propagating the image of Gretry as an artistic paragon who shed glory on those around him. Although many of the facts are beyond dispute, their accounts are chiefly interesting as a study of the way that Gretry's image was put to the service of romantic, post-Revolutionary sensibilities. Gretry moved back to the Ermitage in the summer of 1813, after two years' residence in the city. His perpetually poor health was, he felt, reaching a point of crisis, and he expressed the wish to end his days 'in the company of Jean-Jacques'. The crowds at Gretry's lying-in-state gave a hint of the vast scale of his funeral, which took place on 27 September.
