To conclude the list of musical performances which have derived a gloomy celebrity from their connection with the last days of Louis XVI., we may reproduce the programme issued by the directors of the Opéra National on the first anniversary of his execution, 1724. It ran thus:--"On behalf of and for the people gratis. In joyful commemoration of the death of the tyrant, the National Opera will give to-day, 6 Pluviose, year 2 of the Republic, 'Miltiades at Marathon,' 'The Siege of Thionville,' 'The Offering to Liberty.'"
The Opera under the Republic was directed until 1792 by four distinguished _sans-culottes_--Henriot, Chaumette, Le Roux, and Hébert, the last named of whom had once been check-taker of the Académie. The others knew nothing whatever of operatic affairs. The management at the theatre was afterwards transferred to Francoeur, one of the former directors associated with Cellérier, an architect; but the dethroned _impresarios_, accompanied by Danton and other Republican amateurs, constantly made their appearance behind the scenes, and very frequently did the chief members of the company the honour of supping with them. In these cases the invitations, as under the ancient _régime_, proceeded, not from the artists, but from the artists' patrons; with this difference, however, that under the Republic the latter never paid the bill.
"The chiefs of the Republic," says M. Castil Blaze, "were very fond of moistening their throats. Henriot, Danton, Hébert, Le Roux, Chaumette, had hardly taken a turn in the _coulisses_ or in the _foyer_ before they said to such an actor or actress, 'We are going to your room. See that we are properly received.' A superb collation was brought in. When the repast was finished and the bottles were empty, the National Convention, the Commune of Paris, beat a retreat without troubling itself about the expense. You think, perhaps, that the dancer or the singer paid for the representatives of the people? Not at all; honest Maugin, who kept the refreshment room of the theatre, knew perfectly well that the actors of the Opera were not paid, that they had no sort of money, not even a rag of an assignat; he made a sacrifice: from delicacy he did not ask from the artists what he would not have dared to claim from the _sans-culottes_, for fear of the guillotine."