the form of a letter from the Superintendent of the Royal Theatres to the San Carlo intendant, Domenico Barbaja, reminding him that submission of a libretto for proposed autumn season opera was overdue. This was duly reported to Cammarano, who responded with some objections, not the least of which was that his original brief had been totally reversed: "a small part for the tenor and then, with the engagement of Signor Nourrit, this condition was totally changed" he stated. Barbaja backed up Cammarano's objection, which also included his inability to meet with the newly appointed censor, Royer, until his appointment was confirmed. Finally, the completed libretto moved up the chain of command with Royer's support until it reached the King. The Minister for Internal Affairs, who received the king's response, on 11 August communicated to Barbaja that "His majesty deigned with his own sacred hand to declare that the histories of the Martyrs are venerated in the Church and are not presented on the stage" The opera's last-minute cancellation by the Catholic King of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies angered the composer and, resolved to move to Paris to further his career there, he left Naples by October 1838, vowing never to have any further dealings with the San Carlo administration. But the cancellation dealt a crushing blow to Nourrit's hopes of reviving his flagging career, and even though he appeared in the opera which was substituted, Saverio Mercadante's Il giuramento, and then productions of Elena da Feltre and Norma which followed, depression overtook him. On 8 March 1839 he jumped to his death from a window of his apartment in Naples. For his part, Cammarano re-used some of the verses he had set for Poliuto in other librettos, including Mercadante's La Vestale, some of which became quite well known. When it finally came time, ten years later, for Poliuto to be staged in Naples, he made a note in his preface to the libretto that: "out of respect for the music, and for the distinguished if unhappy friend who wrote it, I have left the poetry as it was in the original, appealing to the indulgence of the public." Donizetti in Paris, 1838 to 1840 With the Poliuto disaster behind him, Donizetti arrived in Paris in late October 1838 and quickly met and became friendly with the composer Adolphe Adam, who was living in the same apartment building