If these objects of art are to be taken away, it should be stipulated so in the treaty of peace; and then everybody would understand it. This would be putting it on the fairest footing. You then say to France: "You gained these things by conquest; you lose them by defeat"; but for God's sake let us have no more of that _cant_ about revolutionary robberies! PARIS, ---- I went for the first time to the Grand Opera, or, as it is here called, the Académie Royale de Musique, which is in the Rue de Richelieu. _Armida_ was the piece performed, the music by Glück. The decorations were splendid and the dancing beyond all praise. The scenes representing the garden of Armida and the nymphs dancing fully expressed in the mimic art those beautiful lines of Tasso: Cogliam d'amor la rosa! amiamo or, quando Esser si puote riamato amando![36] The effect of the dissolution of the palace and gardens by the waving of Armida's wand is astonishing; it appears completely to be the work of inchantment, from the rapidity of execution which follows the _potentissime parole_. The French recitative however does not please me. The serious opera is an exotic and does not seem to thrive on the soil of France. The language does not possess sufficient intonation to give effect to the recitative. On the contrary, the comic operas are excellent; and here the national music and singing appear to great advantage. It never degenerates to the grotesque or absurd _buffo_ of the Italians, but is always exquisitely graceful, simple, touching and natural. Among the ballets, I have seen perhaps three of the best, viz., _Achille à Scyros, Flore et Zéphire_ and _La folle par amour_. In the ballet of Flore and Zéphire, the dancers who did these two parts appeared more aerian than earthly. To use a phrase of Burke's, I never beheld so _beautiful a vision. Nina_, or _la folle par amour_, is a ballet from private life. The title sufficiently explains its purport; it is exquisitely touching and pathetic. O what a divine creature is Bigottini! what symmetry of form! what innate grace, what a captivating expression of countenance; and then the manner in which she did the mad scenes and her return to reason! Oh! I was moved even to tears. Never had any performance such an effect upon me. What a magnificent _tout ensemble_ is the Grand Opera at Paris! Whenever I feel chagrined or melancholy I shall come here; I feel as if I were in a new world; the fiction appears reality; my senses are ravished, and I forget all my cares.