The unifying factor of Rameau's fin-de-siècle reception was the composer's role as a nationalist figurehead for French music; any praise directed at the composer was also praise for the land that had produced his genius. In his brief 1876 Rameau biography, the critic and musicologist Arthur Pougin said as much unequivocally: “Outside of all comparison, and judging Rameau from an absolute point of view, it is only fair to say that such an artist gives eternal glory to his homeland.” The publication of Pougin's text coincided with a major event in Rameau reception: a festival in Dijon, the composer's birthplace. In Paris, the festival sparked renewed interest in the composer, resulting in daily reports in musical periodicals and updates in both specialist and general newspapers. The central concept of this festival was not only the celebration of a great composer, but of a great French composer.

Rameau's Frenchness continued to be a major focus for critics and audiences after the festival as well. Only a few years later, the preface to the Michaelis piano-vocal score of Castor et Pollux (1878/79) urged readers not to forget that “Rameau's glory is eminently French.” In a 1905 article on Rameau's life, the critic Gustave Bret gave voice to the commonly held opinion that Rameau exemplified the best qualities of French music: “The deeper one delves into Rameau's art, the more one becomes convinced that one must return to him to recover, in all its grace, clarity, and truth, the very essence of French genius.”