Jean-Marie COLLOT D'HERBOIS (1749-1796) actor and playwright, Conventionnel (Paris), fiery Montagnard, member of the Comité de Salut Public, he violently suppressed the Lyon insurrection and was one of the main players in the fall of Robespierre; sentenced to deportation to French Guiana, where he died. Manuscrit autographe Academie royale de musique, [fin 1789] ; 2 pages in-4 (note by Villenave at the head, ink stamp of the J.L. Debauve collection). On the subject of the future of the Opéra, discussed by representatives of the Commune. According to some, the theater could not reopen, as the King no longer wished to make up the deficit; according to others, "the machine would go as usual, the Chevalier de Saint Michel Francœur being sure of the permanence of all the subjects", except for a few who "wanted to provide opera service at their new hall on rue de richelieu. [...] La cloture derniere fut faitte a lancienne mode, au profit et pour la capitation des acteurs." The last performance (July 12, 1789) featured two ballets, Mirza et Télemaque and "Œdipe à Colonne, opera dans lequel on ne cesse de regretter Mr et Mde Choron". Last year was mediocre; we saw two Demophons, including one by Marmontel and Cherubini, "Aspasie spectacle de cour d'un excellent produit, [...] Les Prétendus comédie de genre bourgeois. [...] Les Pomiers et le moulin, a small country sketch, very inferior to the village soothsayer, has kept the theater short of better things. Two successes, however: "Nephté opera du genre severe" and Semiramis et Zelmire. He concludes with "Télemaque, a choreographic poem of wise, bold, philosophical conception, which makes the least dancing people love dancing, and can make the most austere moralizers believe that an opera extra, as far as she is concerned, is not altogether unfit to become a vehicle of wisdom and good example".