by whom it was directed, knew not who the author was until after a general plaudit had borne the testimony of the work.  Everybody present was so delighted with it, that, on the next day, nothing else was spoken of in the different companies.  M. de Cury, Intendant des Menus, who was present at the rehearsal, demanded the piece to have it performed at court.  Duclos, who knew my intentions, and thought I should be less master of my work at the court than at Paris, refused to give it.  Cury claimed it authoratively.  Duclos persisted in his refusal, and the dispute between them was carried to such a length, that one day they would have gone out from the opera-house together had they not been separated.  M. de Cury applied to me, and I referred him to Duclos.  This made it necessary to return to the latter.  The Duke d’Aumont interfered; and at length Duclos thought proper to yield to authority, and the piece was given to be played at Fontainebleau.

The part to which I had been most attentive, and in which I had kept at the greatest distance from the common track, was the recitative.  Mine was accented in a manner entirely new, and accompanied the utterance of the word.  The directors dared not suffer this horrid innovation to pass, lest it should shock the ears of persons who never judge for themselves.  Another recitative was proposed by Francueil and Jelyotte, to which I consented; but refused at the same time to have anything to do with it myself.

When everything was ready and the day of performance fixed, a proposition was made me to go to Fontainebleau, that I might at least be at the last rehearsal.  I went with Mademoiselle Fel, Grimm, and I think the Abbe Raynal, in one of the stages to the court.  The rehearsal was tolerable:  I was more satisfied with it than I expected to have been.  The orchestra was numerous, composed of the orchestras of the opera and the king’s band.  Jelyotte played Colin, Mademoiselle Fel, Colette, Cuvillier the Devin:  the choruses were those of the opera.  I said but little; Jelyotte had prepared everything; I was unwilling either to approve of or censure what he had done; and notwithstanding I had assumed the air of an old Roman, I was, in the midst of so many people, as bashful as a schoolboy.

The next morning, the day of performance, I went to breakfast at the coffee-house ‘du grand commun’, where I found a great number of people.  The rehearsal of the preceding evening, and the difficulty of getting into the theatre, were the subjects of conversation.  An officer present said he entered with the greatest ease, gave a long account of what had passed, described the author, and related what he had said and done; but what astonished me most in this long narrative, given with as much assurance as simplicity, was that it did not contain a syllable of truth.  It was clear to me that he who spoke so positively of the rehearsal had not been at it, because, without knowing