Elephant bird determined that "Vorombe titan" reached weights of and stood tall, making it the world's largest bird, slightly larger than the much older "Dromornis stirtoni". Elephant birds have been extinct since at least the 17th century. Étienne de Flacourt, a French governor of Madagascar in the 1640s and 1650s, mentions an ostrich-like bird said to inhabit unpopulated regions, though it is unclear whether he was repeating folk tales passed on from generations earlier. In 1659, Flacourt wrote of the "vouropatra – a large bird which haunts the Ampatres and lays eggs like the ostriches; so that the people of these places
François Lays Cherubini made the courageous decision to use his discretionary powers and take personal responsibility for authorising a special performance whose takings would be divided equally between the Académie and Lays. Even if it is unclear what right the director of the École royale de musique et de déclamation had to make such a decision, the performance did in fact take place at the Opéra on 20 November 1826. The programme consisted of Boieldieu's opéra comique "Le calife de Bagdad"; the second act of "Anacréon chez Polycrate", in which Lays played his most famous role for the last time; and the