Anne Ford it was considered controversial for a woman to play the "masculine" viola da gamba, referred to at the time as the "viol di gambo". Ford gave a performance at Spring Gardens in 1761, "English airs". accompanying herself on the musical glasses. She also wrote a published work, "Instructions for Playing on the Musical Glasses". The instrument was comparable to the glass harp of Richard Pockrich consisting of individual glass goblets tuned with water, and preceded the 1761 mechanized armonica (Glass harmonica) invention of Benjamin Franklin and played by Marianne Davies. Ford's accomplishments risked being complicated by an infatuated lover, the
Paris in the 18th century they were well connected, could expect to command a regiment by the time they were only twenty-five. The children of the nobility attended the most select schools in Paris; the "Collège de Clermont", and especially the Jesuit college of "Louis-le-Grand". In addition to their academic courses, they were taught fencing and horsemanship. At the beginning of the 18th century, most of the noble families had their large "hôtels particuliers", or town houses, in the Marais neighborhood, but over the course of the century they moved to the neighborhoods of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, near the "Palais Royal", and especially to the