Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy

[2] At the fall of the Terror he resumed his commission but again fell under suspicion, being accused of treasonable correspondence with the English envoy, James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury who had been sent to France to negotiate terms of peace.

[4] De Jouy now turned his attention to literature, and produced in 1807 with immense success the libretto for Gaspare Spontini's opera La vestale.

The piece ran for a hundred nights, and owing in part to its libretto, was characterized by the Institut de France as the best lyric drama of the day.

From 1811 to 1814 he published in the weekly Gazette de France a series of satirical sketches of Parisian life, later collected under the title of L'Ermite de la Chaussée d'Antin,[5] ou observations sur les moeurs et les usages français au commencement du xixe siècle (1812–1814, 5 vols.

[6] In 1821 his tragedy of Sylla gained a triumph due in part to the genius of the actor Talma, who had studied the title-rôle from Napoleon; it opened 27 December 1821 at the Théâtre-Français.