The French oboist writes to composer Jules Massenet with a humble request for two opera scores: While I was engaged at the Opéra Comique, the Maison Brandus graciously sent me all your dramatic works, to which you have since added new masterpieces: Le Prophète and L'Ètoile du Nord. You know how happy I would be, without going to the theater, to be frequently able to know the immeasurable beauties of these two works, but how can I ask Mr. Brandus who already obliged me so much? Would it not be better if I squeezed my courage with both hands to express to you the desire to receive them from you as a compensation for the devoted admiration I have for you?

Apollon Barret was a professor of oboe at the Royal Academy of Music in London and for some time an oboist at the Opéra Comique. The publisher to whom he refers, Brandus, had purchased the firm of Maurice Schlesinger in 1846 and published the first editions of Meyerbeer's Le Prophète and L'Ètoile du Nord in 1849 and 1854, respectively.