Her name was Elizabeth Buquet, younger sister of Joseph Buquet, whom had been killed by the opera ghost, although she did not know of his death. Elizabeth had once lived at the Opera Populaire, studying to become a ballerina with her friends there. But one day, Elizabeth discovered that she had a particularly good singing voice, so she left the opera house in search of a voice tutor to help her perfect her singing. In search of a tutor, she went travelling round Europe. Although she had an excellent voice that could earn lots of money, her search was fruitless. By this time she had run out of money and had no home, leaving her on the streets with nothing except the clothes she was in and herself for company. The only way she could get food was by singing her heart out while sitting on the side of the road, and waiting for an odd passer by to drop and small bit of change from which she could buy some bread. She certainly turned the heads of passers by with her singing, but it didn't help her at all. At this time she was living in a small village just south of Paris, called Chartres.
She had been hoping that she would somehow be able to visit her brother and the inhabitants of the Opera Populaire, and perhaps even study at the ballet school again with Madame Giry. Elizabeth didn't know of the hanging of her brother or even the tragic fire of the Opera house, even though it was three weeks after the flames had flooded and destroyed some of the interior, leaving it unused (except for the opera ghost, of course). As she didn't know of this, she got ready to go with no worries.
With no money, she had only one way to get to Paris-she had to steal a horse from a local farm and ride there. So she crept into one of the farms in the village in the dead of night, saddled a horse and led it away quietly, careful not to disturb the owners. When she got far enough away from the farm, she got on the horse and they galloped away as quickly as possible.
After a couple of hours of riding the horse became tired, and they were luckily arriving in Paris. Elizabeth left her horse in a nearby field to graze, and she walked to the local market to get some food, as she was quite hungry. She didn't have any money, so she quickly snatched some food and ran for her life.