d wishes to receive
nothing. He is right, but the King cannot accept gratis so fine a
present; I propose that the King grant him the cross of the Legion of
Honor and announce it himself to him to-morrow--which would be an act
full of grace. All favors must come always from the King."

Great tenacity was needed in the government of Charles X. to get the
Chefs-d'Oeuvre of Rossini represented at the Opera. A little school of
petty and backward ideas rushed, under pretext of patriotism, but
really from jealousy, systematically to drive from the stage everything
not French. For this coterie Rossini and Meyerbeer were suspects,
intruders, who must be repulsed at any cost. The government had the
good sense to take no account of this ridiculous opposition, which
refused to recognize that art should be cosmopolitan. Before seeing his
name on the bills of our first lyric stage, Rossini required no less
than nine years of patience. All Europe applauded him, but at Paris he
had to face the fire of pamphleteers rendered furious by his fame. The
government finally forced the Opera to mount Le Siege de Corinthe. Its
success was so striking that the evening of the first representation
(October 9, 1826), the public made almost a riot for half an hour,
because Rossini, called loudly by an enthusiastic crowd, refused to
appear upon the stage.

The maestro gave at the Opera Moise, March 26, 1826; Le Comte Ory,
August 20, 1828; Guillaume Tell, August 20, 1829. (At this time the
first representations of the most important works took place in
midsummer.) The evening of the first night of Guillaume Tell, the
orchestra went, after the opera, to give a serenade under the windows
of the composer, who occupied the house on the Boulevard Montmartre,
through which the Passage Jouffroy has since been cut. The 10th of
February, 1868, on the occasion of the hundredth representation of the
same work, there was a repetition of the serenade of 1829. The master
then lived in the Rue Chaussee d'Antin, No. 2. Under his windows the
orchestra and chorus of the opera commenced the concert about half an
hour after midnight, by the light of torches, and Faure sang the solos.

The government which secured the representation of Guillaume Tell was
not afraid of the words "independence" and "liberty." A year and a half
before, the 20th of February, 1828, there had been given at the Opera
the chef-d'oeuvre of Auber, La Muette de Portici, and the Duchess of
Berry, a