Jean-Marie COLLOT D'HERBOIS (1749-1796) actor and playwright, a member of the Convention (Paris), a fiery Montagnard, a member of the Committee of Public Safety, he violently repressed the insurrection in Lyon and was one of the main actors in the fall of Robespierre; condemned to deportation to French Guiana where he died. Autograph manuscript Royal Academy of Music, [late 1789]; 2 pages in-4 (note by Villenave at the head, ink stamp of the collection J.L. Debauve). On the subject of the future of the Opéra, discussed by the representatives of the Commune. According to some, the Theater could not reopen, the King no longer wanting to make up the deficit, according to others "the machine will go as usual the knight of Saint Michel Francœur and being sure of the permanence of all the subjects", except for some who "wanted to make the service of the opera to their new room of the street of richelieu. [...] The last closing was done in the old fashion, for the benefit and for the capitation of the actors. At the last performance (July 12, 1789), two ballets were given, Mirza and Télemaque, and "Œdipe à Colonne, opera in which one does not cease to regret Mr. and Mde Choron. The past year was mediocre; we saw two Demophon, one of which was by Marmontel and Cherubini, "Aspasie, a court show of excellent quality, [...] Les Prétendus, a bourgeois comedy. [...] Les Pomiers et le moulin small country sketch, very inferior to the village soothsayer held the theater by the lack of better things ". Two successes however: "Nephté opera of the severe kind" and Semiramis and Zelmire. He concludes with " Télemaque, a choreographic poem of a wise, bold, philosophical conception, which makes the least dancing people like dancing, and can make believe to the most austere moralizers that an opera extra, as far as she is concerned, is not completely unfit to become a vehicle of wisdom and good example ".