Soon after his return, the Grand Duchess Helena Pavlovna appointed Rubinstein her Court pianist and accompanist, a position which he playfully described as that of "musical stoker" to the Court. In April 1852 his first essay in opera, _Dmitri Donskoi_ (Dmitri of the Don), the libretto by Count Sollogoub, was given in St. Petersburg, but its reception was disappointing. It was followed, in May 1853, by _Thomouska-Dourachok_ (Tom the Fool), which was withdrawn after the third performance at the request of the composer, who seems to have been hurt at the lack of enthusiasm shown for his work. Two articles from his pen which appeared in the German papers, and are quoted by Youry Arnold in his "Reminiscences," show the bitterness of his feelings at this time. "No one in his senses," he wrote, "would attempt to compose a Persian, a Malay, or a Japanese opera; therefore to write an English, French or Russian opera merely argues a want of sanity. Every attempt to create a national musical activity is bound to lead to one result--disaster." Between the composition of the _Dmitri Donskoi_ and _Tom the Fool_, Rubinstein's amazingly active pen had turned out two one-act operas to Russian words: _Hadji-Abrek_ and _Sibirskie Okhotniki_ (The Siberian Hunters). But now he laid aside composition for a time and undertook a long concert tour, starting in 1856 and returning to Russia in 1858. During this tour[21] he visited Nice, where the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand Duchess Helena spent the winter of 1856-1857, and it seems probable that this was the occasion on which the idea of the Imperial Russian Musical Society[22] was first mooted, although the final plans may have been postponed until Rubinstein's return to Petersburg in 1858. Little time was lost in any case, for the society was started in 1859, and the Moscow branch, under the direction of his brother Nicholas, was founded in 1860.