_Le Triomphe de Trajan_ was a work in which Napoleon's clemency to a treacherous or patriotic German prince was celebrated, and it has been said that the programme of the 1st of April was changed, because the allied sovereigns disliked the subject of the opera. But it was perfectly natural that they should wish to hear Spontini's master-piece, and that they should not particularly care to listen to a _pièce d'occasion_, set to music by a French composer of no name. I have said that Cherubini's _Abencerrages_, of which all but the overture is now forgotten, was produced in 1813, and that the emperor attended its first representation the night before his departure from Paris, to rejoin his troops, and if possible, check the advance of the victorious allies. No other work of importance was produced at the French Académie until Rossini's _Siège de Corinthe_ was brought out in 1825. This, the first work written by the great Italian master specially for the French Opera, was represented at the existing theatre in the Rue Lepelletier, the opera house in the Rue Richelieu having been pulled down in 1820. * * * * * [Sidenote: A MURDER AT THE OPERA.] In the year just mentioned, on the 13th of February, being the last Sunday of the Carnival, an unusually brilliant audience had assembled at the Académie Royale. _Le Rossignol_, an insipid, and fortunately, very brief production, was the opera; but the great attraction of the evening consisted in two ballets, _La Carnaval de Venise_, and _Les Noces de Gamache_. The Duke and Duchess de Berri were present, and when _Le Carnaval de Venise_, _Le Rossignol_, and the first act of _Les Noces de Gamache_, had been performed, the duchess rose to leave the theatre. Her husband accompanied her to the carriage, and was taking leave of her, intending to return to the theatre for the last act of the ballet, when a man crept up to him, placed his left arm on the duke's left side, pulled him violently towards him, and as he held him in his grasp, thrust a dagger through his body. The dagger entered the duke's right side, and the pressure of the assassin's arm, and the force with which the blow was given, were so great, that the weapon went through the lungs, and pierced the heart, a blade of six inches inflicting a wound nine inches long. The news of the duke's assassination spread through the streets of Paris as if by electricity; and M. Alexandre Dumas, in his interesting Memoirs, tells us almost the same thing that Balzac says about it in one of his novels; that it was known at the farther end of Paris, before a man on horseback, despatched at the moment the blow was struck, could possibly have reached the spot. On the other hand, M. Castil Blaze shows us very plainly that the terrible occurrence was not known within the Opera; or, at least, only to a few officials, until after the conclusion of the performance, which went on as if nothing had happened.