Sébastien. Herbert Weinstock, in his biography of Donizetti, has speculated that Foucher in turn may have been influenced by John Dryden's 1690 tragicomedy Don Sebastian. Foucher also contributed libretti for several operas and ballets, which "were not always impressive successes," but some for the Paris Opera "revealed a lively imagination and a feeling for the picturesque situations dear to the audiences of his time." These included Pierre-Louis Dietsch's opera Le Vaisseau fantôme (9 November 1842), Adolphe Adam's opera Richard en Palestine (7 October 1844), Edouard Deldevez's ballet-pantomime Paquita (a collaboration with Joseph Mazilier, who also did the choreography, first performed on 1 April 1846), and Count Nicolas Gabrielli's pantomime-ballet L'Étoile de Messine (20 November 1861). Most of Foucher's dramatic works were written in collaboration with well-known authors including Mazilier, D'Ennery, Arvers, Anicet-Bourgeois, Berthet, Goubaux, Desnoyers, Lavergne, Régnier, Borri, Jarry, Herbin, Bouchardy, Duport, Delaporte, Alboize, and Jaime. Career as a journalist and writer of nonfiction In 1848 he began to engage in politics, becoming the Paris correspondent for L'Indépendance belge in Brussels. His submissions were "very remarkable" and "full of life and spirit, and also full of information." He also became a noted theatre and music critic, first for L'Opinion nationale, for which he later wrote a Monday column entitled "Revue dramatique et lyrique", then for La France in 1865, and finally for La Presse. "After Jules Janin he was the critic who was most respected and feared." Many of his reviews were collected and published in 1867 in book form as Entre cour et jardin: études et souvenirs du théâtre (Between Court and Garden: Studies and Recollections of the Theatre). In 1873 he published a collection of sketches of famous dramatists as Les Coulisses du passé (In the Wings of the Past) and the book Les Sièges héroiques (Heroic Sieges), which tells the stories of celebrated sieges from the liberation of Orléans by Joan of Arc in 1429 to the bombardment of Strasbourg in 1870. Career as a novelist Foucher published two serialized novels in La France and L'Opinion nationale. These were later published in book form: Le Guetteur de Cordouan (The Watchman of Cordouan) in 1853, and La Vie du plaisir (The Life of Pleasure) in 1860. Personal traits Foucher had several distinctive personal traits. He was so near-sighted, that in Paris he became a standard for comparison: myope comme Paul Foucher. His handwriting was so bad that the