Louis Varney was a French composer. Louis Varney was the son of Alphonse Varney, a French conductor at theBouffes-Parisiens and at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, he was also invited to conduct the "French Opera Season" abroad, notably in New Orleans, Louisiana, and this is how Louis came to be born there in 1844. He studied music with his father, and became first a conductor like him. He was conducting in a small theatre L'Athénée-Comique, while he began composing, he succeeded in having one of his work, Il signor Pulcinellapresented there in 1876 with considerable success. He was then proposed by the director of the Bouffes-Parisiens, Louis Cantin, to write an operetta on a libretto by Paul Ferrier and Jules Prevel, based on a vaudeville by St-Hilaire and Dupont from 1835, entitled L'habit ne fait pas le moine. Louis accepted and under a new title Les mousquetaires au couvent, it premiered at the Bouffes-Parisiens on March 16, 1880, and the success was absolute.