Let us not hurry past the former Hôtel Choiseul, where, during the Reign of Terror, Pace, Minister of War, resided; where, under the Directory, the staff of the Army of Paris was established; and where Murat afterwards lived in the capacity of Governor. When the Restoration came to pass it was turned into the headquarters of the National Guard. Finally it was put up for sale, when, after the assassination of the Duc of Berri on the steps of the Opera House in the Rue Richelieu, it was determined to pull down the lyric temple and erect another on the site occupied by the Hôtel Choiseul. We shall see in the proper place that the demolition of the Opera House of the Rue Richelieu was due to the representations of the Archbishop of Paris, who refused to allow the last sacrament to be administered to the dying prince unless he received a promise that the profane building, in which so holy an act had to be performed, should immediately afterwards be destroyed. The Hôtel Choiseul was bought by the City of Paris, and close to what remained of the ancient mansion rose the new Opera House, opening on to the Rue Le Pelletier, where, between the years 1821 and 1823, so many great works were brought out, including Rossini's _Guillaume Tell_, Auber's _Masaniello_, as it is called in England, Donizetti's _Favorite_, Verdi's _Vêpres Siciliennes_, and Meyerbeer's _Robert le Diable_, _Prophète_, and _Africaine_. On the night of Tuesday, October 20, 1873, the eve of the hundredth representation of Ambroise Thomas' _Hamlet_, flames burst out in the wardrobe, and the next day the Opera House was a heap of ruins. It is a curious fact, not hitherto noticed, that the destruction by fire of the Opera House in the Rue Le Pelletier took place precisely two hundred years after the production of Lulli's earliest opera, the first lyrical piece ever performed in Paris under the royal patent which authorised the establishment of a regular opera house. Lulli has been represented, in a famous picture, receiving his "privilege" from the hands of Louis XIV. as a reward and encouragement for services rendered. It can scarcely be said, however, that Lulli, though he established opera in Paris, was the first to introduce it. Cardinal Mazarin brought Italian opera to Paris in 1645, when Lulli was but a child; and the French opera named _Akébar, Roi de Mogol_, written and composed by the Abbé Mailly, was represented the year afterwards in the episcopal palace of Carpentras under the direction of Cardinal Bichi. A public performance, moreover, was given of _Pomone_, words by Perrin, music by Cambert, in 1671; but though _Pomone_ was the first French opera offered in Paris to a general audience, Lulli's _Cadmée_ was the first of that long series of lyrical productions given at the State Opera House which extended, with but two short breaks, from 1673 to 1873.