François-Benoît Hoffman

[1] He served there for only a very short time, and, returning to Nancy, wrote some poems which brought him into notice at the little court of Lunéville over which the Marquise de Boufflers then presided.

Adrien was accepted instead by Méhul, with whom Hoffman collaborated on several operas, including Euphrosine (1790), Stratonice (1792) and Ariodant (1799).

In 1792, the French Revolutionary government objected to Adrien on political grounds, and Hoffman ran considerable risk by refusing to make the changes proposed to him.

[1] Hoffman's wide reading qualified him to write on all sorts of subjects, and he turned, apparently with no difficulty, from reviewing books on medicine to violent attacks on the Jesuits.

[1] Hoffman's poem Je te perds, fugitive espérance was set by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1806 in his song Als die Geliebte sich trennen wollten (WoO 132) in a translation by Stephan von Breuning.