In 1824 the Italian musician Gioacchino Rossini, who was at the time at the height of his reputation, living in golden retirement in Paris, was commissioned to write an opera celebrating the coronation of King Charles X, the former Comte d'Artois, youngest brother of the unfortunate Louis XVI. Rossini obliged: the opera was called Il Viaggio a Reims (The Journey to Reims); it was performed a few times—apparently with success—in the presence of the royal family, but then, judging it unsuitable for ordinary theatrical repertoire, the author withdrew it, using the score for his popular opera buffa Le Comte Ory.

The plot of Il Viaggio a Reims is quite thin: a group of travelers of different nationalities, on their way to Reims to assist in the ceremony of the coronation, meet in the spa town of Plombières; marooned in a local auberge by a series of mishaps and unable to pursue their journey, they decide to celebrate the event on the spot with a banquet and a musical performance. Each character in the opera impersonates rather comically a national stereotype: a French countess is a fashion-mad flirt, a Spanish nobleman clicks his heels and breaks into flamencos, a German baron is called Trombonok and appears on stage with the accompaniment of a military brass band, and so on.