In due course however he became a skilled cellist during a period when the cello was gaining popularity over the viol in France, and later came to completely replace it, as indeed had already happened in Italy some 40 years prior.
He was accorded special privileges by King Louis XV at Fontainebleau, on 22 October 1733 for six years, to compose and publish several sonatas and other instrumental works.
After his first book Livre I - Sonates pour violoncelle et basse continue was a success, in November 1733, he published a second edition of it in 1740.
He went to Italy in 1736 to study with the well-known Italian cellist Francesco Alborea, known as Franciscello, who during that time seems to have also been employed in Vienna from 1726 until 1739.
[2] He undertook a further long tour in Italy in April 1737 and returned to Paris in summer of 1738, to appear at the renowned Concert Spirituel on 15 August and 8 September where he impressed his audience with "grand precision", according to the local press.