Silvain (opera)

The pastoral theme and its celebration of rural life was common in opéra-comique of the time but Marmontel's libretto goes much further in advocating social equality and defending the rights of peasants against the encroachment of landowners.

Marmontel's chief source was Erast, a one-act play by the Swiss writer Salomon Gessner, who enjoyed a considerable European vogue at the time.

Erast is an impoverished mountain farmer whose servant Simon decides to "rob the rich to pay the poor" and feed his master's and other destitute families.

It emerges that the traveller is Erast's father who is searching for the son he disinherited long ago for marrying beneath him and now regrets his decision.

[1] Marmontel changed the focus to deal with an issue of great contemporary relevance in Ancien Régime France, the question of peasants' traditional rights to use land.