“Cursed music, profane instruments that make us offend God.” A plea against a master street performer in Nîmes in 1605

The plea of the third consul of Nîmes, accused in 1605 of breaking a violin, is an opportunity for the lawyer Anne Rulman to discuss the place of music and dance in a Protestant city. Relying on the theory of music, he justifies the ability of the elites, through their humanist education impregnated with neo-Stoicism, to distinguish between 'divine' and 'accursed' music, and thus their desire to free themselves from an ecclesiastical discipline intended to maintain order among the population.