While Saint-Georges was away, the "Concert Olympique" had resumed performing at the Hôtel de Soubise, the old hall of the "Amateurs". The Italian violinist Jean-Baptiste Viotti had been appointed as conductor. Disenchanted, Saint-Georges, together with the talented young singer Louise Fusil, and his friend, the horn virtuoso Lamothe, embarked on a brief concert tour in the North of France. On May 5, 1789, the opening day of the fateful Estates General, Saint-Georges, seated in the gallery with Laclos, heard Jacques Necker, Louis XVI's minister of finance, saying, "The slave trade is a barbarous practice and must be eliminated."