 Yet Rameau's eagerness to write an opera is shown by a letter he wrote in October 1727 to Antoine Houdar de La Motte asking for a libretto.It was a strange choice; once famous for providing the texts to such works as André Campra's "L'Europe galante" (1697) and Marin Marais's "Alcyone" (1706), Houdar de La Motte had written nothing for the musical stage for almost 20 years.Nothing came of the request and there is no record of any reply, but the fact that Rameau carefully preserved his own letter among his personal papers proves how much the project must have meant to him.