The comments of the Parisian wits were of a different order to the caustic satire of Carlyle: in the engraving by Sargent, which appeared in all the glory of printed colour, a learned but absent-minded physicist, instead of inflating his silken globes, inflates himself with the result that he disappeared through the window. ‘Mon pauvre oncle,’ exclaims a young man who exhibits the extreme of grief and despair. A fan leaf ‘à l’oncle’ appears in the Bibliothèque Nationale, having been removed from a mount. Wright, _Caricature History of the Georges_, note, p. 545, says: ‘The ascents in France during the year 1784 were very numerous, and excited interest even in England.’ Horace Walpole, writing from London on May 7 of the following year, says: ‘Of conversation, the chief topic is air-balloons; a French girl, daughter of a dancer, has made a voyage into the clouds, and was in danger of falling to earth, and being _ship wrecked_. Three more balloons sail to-day; in short, we shall have a prodigious navy in the air, and then what signifies having lost the empire of the ocean?’ Beaumarchais’ comedy, _Le Mariage de Figaro_, upon its production in Paris in 1784, immediately became the rage, and enjoyed its successful run of a ‘hundred nights.’ Its story supplied the ‘book’ for Mozart’s opera, which had been ‘commanded’ by the Emperor (Joseph II.) of Germany. This work, first produced in Vienna at the time when Italian opposition to German opera as represented by Gluck and Mozart waxed fiercest, failed, being so indifferently performed under the direction of Salieri, the head of the opposing faction. At Prague, however, where it was subsequently given, and which was outside the influence of Salieri, it was completely successful, a circumstance which afforded Mozart so much satisfaction that he declared that he would write an opera for the good people of Prague, and thereupon produced _Don Giovanni_! While the Italian opposition to Mozart’s music was so pronounced, the feeling of antagonism was by no means reciprocated by the great Salzburg composer, who wrote a number of variations to airs by Sarti, Paisiello, and Salieri. The beautiful series of variations on the air ‘Mio Caro Adone’ from Salieri’s opera, _La fiera ai Venezia_, was composed in 1773, the opera appearing in Vienna a year previously. Two Figaro fans appear in the Schreiber collection, British Museum, the one with a single medallion in the centre, with scene from the play, and four stanzas of verse commencing ‘Jadis on voioit Thalie,’ etc.; the other with a centre medallion and two smaller ones, and thirteen stanzas of verse commencing ‘Cœurs sensibles, cœurs fidelles,’ etc., with music. Inscribed at the top—‘Vaudeville du Mariage de Figaro.’ Beaumarchais collaborated with Salieri in the opera of _Tarare_, first produced in Paris in 1787. He claimed to have led the way to the Revolution by this piece, which formed the subject of several fans.