Dauvergne’s Les Troqueurs is generally considered the first opéra-comique. Indeed, it is both the first piece to feature music specially composed to the libretto (itself based on a tale by La Fontaine), virtually devoid of any vaudeville, and to adopt the Italo-European style we call classical – Dauvergne even passed himself off as an Italian on this occasion, following a procedure well known to French composers. Les Troqueurs is nevertheless in the form of an entertainment, like Pergolesi's La Serva padrona or Rousseau’s Le Devin du village, and is sung throughout, with recitatives in the French style, whereas opéra-comique was based on the alternation of sung and spoken elements; a ballet, also very French, concludes the work.
The Éditions du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles offers the only modern edition of this essential work in the history of French music.