Opera was now to be heard no more in the Rue Richelieu. The holy sacrament had crossed the threshold of a profane building, and it was necessary that this profane building should be destroyed; indeed, a promise to that effect had been already given. All the theatres were closed for ten days, and the Opera, now homeless, did not re-commence its performances until upwards of two months afterwards, when it took possession for a time of the Théâtre Favart. In the August of the same year the erection of the theatre in the Rue Lepelletier was commenced. The present Théâtre de l'Opéra, (the absurd title of Académie having recently been abandoned), was intended when it was first built, to be but a temporary affair. Strangely enough it has lasted forty years, during which time it has seen solidly constructed opera-houses perish by fire in all parts of Europe. May the new opera-house about to be erected in Paris, under the auspices of Napoleon III., be equally fortunate. I am here reminded that both the Napoleons have proved themselves good and intelligent friends to the Opera. In the year eleven of the French republic, the First Consul and his two associates, the Minister of the French republic, the three Consuls, the Ministers of the interior and police, General Junot, the Secretary of State, and a few more officials occupied among them as many as seventeen boxes at the opera, containing altogether ninety-four places. Bonaparte had a report drawn up from which it appeared that the value of these boxes to the administration, was sixty thousand four hundred francs per annum, including fifteen thousand francs for those kept at his own disposition. Thereupon he added to the report the following brief, but on the whole satisfactory remark. "_A datter du premier nivose toutes ces loges seront payées par ceux qui les occupent._" The error in orthography is not the printers', but Napoleon Bonaparte's, and the document in which it occurs, is at present in the hands of M. Regnier of the Comédie Française. A month afterwards, Napoleon, or at least the consular trio of which he was the chief, assigned to the Opera a regular subsidy of 600,000 francs a year; he at the same time gave it a respectable name. Under the Convention it had been entitled "Théâtre de la République et des Arts;" the First Consul called it simply, "Théâtre des Arts," an appellation it had borne before.[90] Hardly had the new theatre in the Rue Lepelletier opened its doors, when a singer of the highest class, a tenor of the most perfect kind, made his appearance. This was Adolphe Nourrit, a pupil of Garcia, who, on the 10th of September, 1821, made his first appearance with the greatest success as "Pylade" in _Iphigénie en Tauride_. It was not, however, until Auber's _Muette de Portici_ was produced in 1828, that Nourrit had an opportunity of distinguishing himself in a new and important part. [Sidenote: LA MUETTE DE PORTICI.]