There are no traces of the pen which wrote the second act of _Guillaume Tell_.
Apropos of this second act, it is not, perhaps, generally known that the author had no idea of ending it with a prayer.

Insurrections are not usually begun with so serious a song.

But at the rehearsals the effect of the unison, _Si parmi nous il est des Traitres_, was so great that they did not dare to go on beyond it.

So they suppressed the real ending, which is now the brilliant entrancing end of the overture.

This finale is extant in the library at the Opera.