In 1780, financial difficulties finally brought him down and the opera was put under direct and permanent guardianship of royal power through the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi.
In less than a year, he revived the main works of Lully, Rameau and Gluck, brought the first troupe of jesters ever heard in Paris, began to accustom the public to musical intermèdes by Paisiello and Anfossi and gave two operas by Piccinni, Roland and Atys.
The presentation of these two plays initiated a second phase of the guerre des bouffons,[1] a storm of opposition to Vismes' attempts to reform the abuses that weakened the staging of opera.
Epigrams were followed by cabals; adherents powerful by their wealth or their position, the financier La Borde and agents of the minister Maurepas, encroached on his authority.
The intrigues did not stop, and the Conseil d'État, by a judgment of 7 March 1780, removed him from his position and withdrew the privilege of the Opera from the city, returning it to the king and stating that "Vismes did not possess the required knowledge."