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 in 1807 to celebrate Napoleon's return to the capital. Not wanting to hurt the French public's feelings, Alexander requested a staging of Spontini's "La vestale" instead, an opera in which Lays always assumed the role of Cinna. At the end of the performance, the angry audience forced Lays – still dressed in his Roman toga – to return to the stage and recite some popular verses thanking the tsar for restoring the Bourbons. According to the brothers Michaud, Alexander was moved to compassion by the sight of the terrified singer and sent one of his aides-de-camp on stage to reassure