In 1866 he returned to Paris where he married. He gave piano lessons. At this stage he had hardly written anything important. However, soon he was to start writing many famous works. He became friends with other composers: Saint-Saëns, Bizet, Delibes, Lalo, Fauré, Duparc and others. Several of these people competed in writing operas for competitions. Massenet wrote several works, but he found writing operas difficult. His operas never won any prizes.