Le jeune Henri

It takes the form of a comédie mêlée de musique (a type of opéra comique) in two acts.

The libretto, by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, is based on an episode from the life of King Henri IV of France.

Bouilly was later to become famous as the author of Léonore, ou L'amour conjugal (1798), the basis of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio.

A reviewer in Le courrier des spectacles wrote that "it would be impossible to imagine anything worse" and that there was "no intrigue, no action, nothing of interest.

It contains traditional hunting horn calls taken from Philidor's opera Tom Jones.