The French composer, teacher and music critic ranks with Auber and Boieldieu as one of the creators of French opera, thanks to the expressive power of his melodic material and his keen sense of dramatic development, and is best known today for his ballets Giselle (1841) and Le corsaire (1856), his operas Le postillon de Lonjumeau (1836) and Si j'étais roi (1852) and his Christmas carol "Minuit, chrétiens!" (Midnight, Christians, 1844, known in English as "O Holy Night"). In the year prior to the present manuscript, his first grand opera, Richard en Palestine, was produced at the Opéra and in that year was elected to membership of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.  But in 1845 François-Louis Crosnier, director of the Opéra-Comique, resigned and was succeeded by Alexandre Basset who soon fell out with Adam and told him that as long as he was director, Adam's works would never be performed at the Opéra-Comique. The present manuscript dates from this difficult period and was evidently composed as an ephemeral work for the baritone Léonard Hermann-Leon (1814-1858), creator of the role of the High Priest in Spontini's La Vestale in 1807.