la guerre des bouffons

la guerre des bouffons (War of the Buffoons), also known as la querelle des bouffons (Quarrel of the Buffoons), is a phrase designating the eighteenth-century dispute in Paris over the relative merits of Italian and French operatic productions. The word buffons was used in the phrase because the company of performers about whom the storm raged was called Les Bouffons. This Italian troupe in Paris had been presenting intermezzi for some time, but no one had attached any special esthetic…