The Carnival of the Animals and xylophone. From the beginning, Saint-Saëns regarded the work as a piece of fun. On 9 February 1886 he wrote to his publishers Durand in Paris that he was composing a work for the coming Shrove Tuesday, and confessing that he knew he should be working on his Third Symphony, but that this work was "such fun" (). He had apparently intended to write the work for his students at the École Niedermeyer, but it was first performed at a private concert given by the cellist Charles Lebouc on Shrove Tuesday, 9 March 1886. A second (private) performance was given
Paris in the Belle Époque "Samson et Dalila" (1877), the "Carnival of the Animals" (1877), and his Symphony No. 3 (1886). On 25 February 1871, he co-founded the Société Nationale de Musique with Romain Bussine to promote French contemporary and chamber music. His students included Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Fauré, two of the foremost French composers of the late 19th- and early 20th centuries. Georges Bizet (1838-1875), born in Paris, was admitted to the Paris Conservatory when he was only ten years old. He finished his most famous work, "Carmen", written for the Opéra-Comique, in 1874. Even before its première, "Carmen" was criticized as immoral.