"How was it that the opera was moved to a building exactly opposite the National Library, so precious and so combustible a repository of human knowledge? The two establishments were only separated by a street, very much too narrow: if the theatre caught fire, was it not sure to burn the library? That is what a great many persons still ask; this question has been re-produced a hundred times in our journals. Go back to the time when the house was built by Mademoiselle Montansier; read the Moniteur Universel, and you will see that it was precisely in order to expose this same library to the happy chances of a fire, that the great lyrical entertainment was transferred to its neighbourhood. The opera hung over it, and threatened it constantly. At this time enlightenment abounded to such a point, that the judicious Henriot, convinced in his innermost conscience that all reading was henceforth useless, had made a motion to burn the library. To move the opera to the Rue Richelieu—the opera, which twice in eighteen years had been a prey to the flames—to place it exactly opposite our literary treasures, was to multiply to infinity the chances of their being burnt.'
Mercier, in reference to the literary views of the Committee of Public Safety, writes in the Nouveau Paris, as follows:—
"The language of Omar about the Koran was not more terrible than those uttered by the members of the committee of public safety when they expressed their intentions formally, as follows:—'Yes, we will burn all the libraries, for nothing will be needed but the history of the Revolution and its laws.'" If the motion of Henriot had been carried, David, the great Conventional painter was ready to propose that the same service should be rendered to the masterpieces in the Louvre, as to the literary wealth of the National Library. Republican subjects, according to David, were alone worthy of being represented.
THE OPERA AND THE NATIONAL LIBRARY.
At one of the sittings of the very council in which Henriot had already brought forward his motion for burning the Library, Mademoiselle Montansier was accused of having built the theatre in the Rue Richelieu with that very design. On the 14th of November, 1793, Chaumette at the sitting of the Commune of Paris, said—
"I denounce the Citoyenne Montansier. The money of the Englishman[71] has been largely employed in raising this edifice, and the former queen gave fifty thousand crowns towards it. I demand that this theatre be closed on account of the dangers which would result from its catching fire." Adopted.
Hébert. "I denounce la demoiselle Montansier, personally; I have information against her. She offered me a box at her new theatre to procure my silence. I demand that la Montansier be arrested as a suspicious person." Adopted.
Chaumette. "I demand, moreover, that the actors, actresses and directors of the Parisian theatres be subjected to the censorship of the council." Adopted.
After deciding that the theatre in the Rue de la Loi could not be kept open without imperilling the existence of the National Library, and after imprisoning Mademoiselle Montansier for having built it, the Commune of Paris deliberately opened it as an opera house! Mademoiselle Montansier was, nevertheless, still kept in prison, and remained there ten months, until after the death of Robespierre.
Mademoiselle Montansier's nocturnal assemblies in the Palais Royal were equally renowned before and after her arrest. Actors and actresses, gamblers, poets, representatives of the people, republican generals, retired aristocrats, conspicuous sans culottes, and celebrities of all kinds congregated there. Art, pleasure, politics, the new opera, the last execution were alike discussed by Dugazon and Barras, le père Duchesne and the Duke de Lauzun, Robespierre and Mademoiselle Maillard, the Chevalier de Saint Georges and Danton, Martainville and the Marquis de Chanvelin, Lays and Marat, Volange and the Duke of Orleans. From the names just mentioned, it will be understood that some members of this interesting society were from time to time found wanting. Their absence was not much remarked, and fresh notorieties constantly came forward to fill the places of those claimed by the guillotine.