Vaudemont’s papers also contain records and correspondance from two other periods in which the prince recruited musicians in Paris, in 1713–14 and 1722 (see Table E.1). A fragmentary account records payments to several musicians including Des Noyers, whom Vaudemont temporarily rehired because he was paid on 2 December 1713 and 14 February 1714. This same account lists three other musicians: “Mlle Coulery,” “Sr. Lefebvre,” and “Sr. Bouley.” Vaudemont employed the latter two long enough to require entries in household pay records, which note that they were hired in Paris at the “pay of a valet de chambre” (one louis d’or per month), and they returned with the prince to Commercy. The same records also indicate that Vaudemont recruited two sisters called “Gentille” to sing in his musique, who were paid only once, in 1714.

These hires coincide with Vaudemont’s visit to Paris and with his association with the singer and composer Jean-Baptiste Dutartre (d. 1749), whose Divertissement pour la paix was performed for the prince on 25 February 1714 according to the title page of the print. The dedication of the volume indicates that the prince gave his “approbation” to the music, and that Dutartre composed it “for [him] alone.” Nevertheless it was performed at the Academie royale de musique in Paris on 15 May 1715 according to a later edition of the work. Two further editions dating from the middle of the century evidence the lasting popularity of Dutartre’s Divertissement.

This work celebrates the Peace of Utrecht (1713), which ended the War of Spanish Succession, a development that Vaudemont – having lost his post in Milan when the French lost Italy – would certainly have celebrated. The work consists of a short prelude in French overture style, an accompanied recitative (“Accablez sous un poids d’une guerre effroyable”), a da capo air (“Que les plaisirs et les fetes, les ris, les jeux, les concerts”) and an air in musette style (“Charmans hautbois, tendres musettes”).