The action of Massenet’s opera begins in the courtyard of an inn at Amiens, where the Chevalier des Grieux happens to fall in with Manon Lescaut, who is being sent to a convent under the charge of her brother, a bibulous guardsman.  Manon does not at all like the prospect of convent life, and eagerly agrees to Des Grieux’s proposal to elope with him to Paris.  The next act shows them in an apartment in Paris.  Des Grieux has tried in vain to obtain his father’s consent to his marriage, and the capricious Manon, finding that the modest style of their menage hardly agrees with her ideas of comfort, listens to the advances made to her by a nobleman named Bretigny, and ends by conniving at a scheme, planned by the elder Des Grieux, for carrying off his son from his questionable surroundings.  In the next act Manon is the mistress of Bretigny, feted and admired by all.  During an entertainment at Cours-la-Reine, she overhears a conversation between Bretigny and the Count des Grieux, and learns from the latter that his son is a novice at Saint Sulpice.  Seized by a sudden return of her old love, she hastens away to the seminary, and after a passionate interview persuades Des Grieux to come back once more to her arms.  In the next act Manon beguiles Des Grieux to a gambling-house, where he quarrels with Guillot, one of her numerous admirers.  The latter revenges himself by denouncing the place to the police, who effect a successful raid upon it and carry off Manon to St. Lazare.  The last scene takes place upon the road to Havre.  Manon, who is condemned to transportation, is passing by with a gang of criminals.  Lescaut persuades the sergeant in charge to allow her an interview with Des Grieux.  She is already exhausted by ill-treatment and fatigue, and dies in his arms.  Massenet’s dainty score reproduces the spirit of the eighteenth century with rare felicity.  A note of genuine passion, too, is not wanting, and an ingenious use of guiding themes binds the score together into a harmonious whole.  A novelty in its arrangement is the plan of an orchestral accompaniment to the dialogue.  AEsthetically this is perhaps hardly defensible, but in several scenes—­notably that of Cours-la-Reine, in which Manon’s agitated interview with the Count stands out in forcible relief against the graceful background formed by a minuet heard in the distance—­the result is completely successful.  ‘Le Cid’ (1885) and ‘Le Mage’ (1891), two works produced at the Paris Opera, may be passed over as comparative failures, but ‘Esclarmonde’ (1889) marks an important stage in Massenet’s career.  The libretto is drawn from an old French romance.  Esclarmonde, the Princess of Byzantium, who is a powerful enchantress, loves Roland, the French knight, and commands her minion spirits to guide him to a distant island, whither she transports herself every night to enjoy his company.  He betrays the secret of their love, and thereby loses Esclarmonde, but by his victory in a tournament at Byzantium he regains her once more.