Rossini contemplated retiring before he wrote Guillaume Tell, but he wanted economic security if he were to take that step. He presented a request for a lifetime position as head of the Théâtre Italien to La Rochefoucauld in 1827, asking for a lifetime annuity of six thousand francs “independent of the circumstances and conditions that the contract may include,” but the request was denied. Two years later, as rehearsals had begun for Guillaume Tell, he threatened to prevent the opening of his eagerly awaited opera unless he received the lifetime contract, a bold move that succeeded. Rossini signed a contract on May 8, 1829, that gave him the annual lifetime income he sought. The king himself signed the contract. The contract stipulated that Rossini was to compose four operas, although it did not say that payment of the annuity was contingent on him composing the operas, a shrewd move on his part.

When he and Isabella left Paris for Italy in October, ten days after the opening of Guillaume Tell, they gave up their Paris lodging, suggesting that Rossini had no immediate plans to return to Paris. Edouard Robert, codirector of the Théâtre Italien, visited Rossini in Bologna in March 1830 to consult with him about the theater's affairs. Describing a meeting with Rossini, he wrote that “I cannot keep the Maestro's attention for more than a moment at a time, and it is much harder to talk to him about affairs here than in Paris… . When I go out with him in the hope of having him in my company for at least a short while, more often than not it happens that he slips away behind the columns of an arcade—and once he has been gossiping with his friends, it no longer is possible to settle anything with him.” Rossini was under contract to write another opera; he wrote to La Rochefoucauld in May 1830 requesting a libretto. “How,” he asked, “can I work without a libretto? It is now nine months overdue and I should so much have liked to get on with my new opera.” He wrote about a libretto again on July 7, but the requested libretto never arrived. Revolution broke out in Paris at the very time of Rossini's second request for a libretto.