The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

(Postscript by the Editor of the English Edition.)

There are other candidates than the Countesses Guicciardi and Brunswick for the honor of having been the object of what, it must be admitted, was Beethoven’s supreme love;—or, at least, there are other women for whom writers have put in pleas. Though Dr. Kalischer professed to believe that he had effectually disposed of the Thayer hypothesis, it is significant that by far the most notable champions who fought for their respective lady-loves are those who entered the lists for the Countess Therese. I mention only the American Thayer; the Englishman Grove; the Germans La Mara, Storck, and Prelinger (like Kalischer, the editor of a collection of Beethoven’s letters); the Frenchmen Rolland and Chantavoine, both biographers of Beethoven. Schindler, Nohl and Kalischer carried the sleeve of the Countess Guicciardi; Frimmel and Volbach seemed gently inclined to Magdalena Willmann, the actress who said that Beethoven wanted to marry her but she would not have him because he was so ugly and “half crazy”; Dr. Wolfgang A. Thomas-San-Galli is the champion of Amalia Sebald as the “Immortal Beloved” and of 1812 as the year in which the love-letter was written. Of his book (“Die Unsterbliche Geliebte Beethovens, Amalia Sebald,” Halle, 1909) it may be said that its merit lies in its close, pertinent and dispassionate reasoning—the quality in which all of Dr. Kalischer’s arguments are most deficient.

Dr. Kalischer’s Defence of Schindler

Schindler’s story touching the letter and Giulietta Guicciardi was unquestioned for thirty years, when doubt was cast upon it by Thayer’s investigations, which fixed the date as 1806 and thereby eliminated the Countess as the composer’s inamorata. In Vol. II, Thayer contented himself with a demonstration that the Countess could not be the “Immortal Beloved.” In Vol. III, in the body of the book, he suggested that in “greatest probability” the lady was the Countess Therese von Brunswick. It does not appear that he ever went further than this, but he died, in 1897, in full conviction that by no possibility could the Guicciardi be rehabilitated in the place she had so long occupied in the minds of historians and romancers. His first contribution to the question (the first portion of this chapter) immediately called forth a defence of Schindler’s story, Dr. Alfred Christian Kalischer being in the van of Schindler’s defenders. Instead of traversing the evidence in the case as Thayer had done, Kalischer proposed and followed the “inductive method” thus: Beethoven could not have indulged in such transports at as late a date as 1806 or 1807. They were the outpourings of a sentimentalist, one of the Werther sort. Beethoven had said in the letter that he could only live wholly with his love or not at all—an expression not to be thought of in connection with a genius who had created the “Eroica” symphony, “Fidelio,” the Sonatas in D minor and F minor (Op. 57), the Pianoforte Concertos in C minor and G major, the Quartets, Op. 59, had finished the fourth Symphony and sketched the C minor and the “Pastoral”—could such a genius believe for a moment that he could not live without the object of his love? etc. The whole argument was merely rhetoric and psychologically speculative.

In a criticism of Thayer’s third volume, written for “Der Clavierlehrer” in 1879, Kalischer took up the subject of Therese Brunswick and, pursuing his old style of argumentation, urged that the “Immortal Beloved” was Giulietta and not Therese because, forsooth, Beethoven had dedicated the C-sharp minor Sonata to the former and nothing better than the Sonata in F-sharp major, Op. 78, composed in 1809, to the latter. Kalischer saw no force in the fact that sketches for the so-called “Moonlight” Sonata antedated the dedication by a considerable period; the essential things in his mind were the dedication and that Lenz thought highly of the C-sharp minor and little of the Fantasia for Pianoforte, Op. 77, dedicated by Beethoven “to his friend” Brunswick, and still less of the F-sharp Sonata dedicated to “another member of the house of Brunswick”; and that while Marx had described the C-sharp minor Sonata as “the low hymn of love’s renunciation” he did not consider the F-sharp major Sonata as worthy even of mention.

These essays, together with another in which Dr. Kalischer performed with great energy the work of disposing of the romantic vaporings of a writer who called herself Mariam Tenger, who had published a book (“Beethoven’s Unsterbliche Geliebte, nach persönlichen Erinnerungen”) at Bonn in 1890, in which she affected to prove what Thayer had set down as merely a probability. This writer (who had most obviously taken her cue from Thayer, though she protested that she had not read his biography when she wrote her book) professed to have had the tale from the lips of the Countess Brunswick herself, that Beethoven, while visiting at Martonvásár, the country-seat of the Brunswicks, in May, 1806, had become secretly engaged to the Countess, no one else knowing the fact except Beethoven’s friend Count Franz von Brunswick. Dr. Kalischer found little difficulty in demolishing a large portion of the fantastic fabric reared by Mariam Tenger, especially that portion which professed to rest upon the alleged testimony of a “Baron Spaun” who was plainly a creation of the romancer’s, though a veritable Spaun did figure, largely and creditably, in the life-history of Schubert. Not content with this the critic went further, and reviewing the sentimental career of Beethoven from 1806 to 1810 (in which latter year it is supposed the relations between him and the Countess Brunswick came to an end), he protested that, in 1807, Beethoven was in love with Therese Malfatti, then a girl of 14 years.

La Mara and the Countess Therese

That question had already been discussed by Thayer, as we have seen. So also had the identity of Baron Spaun by Marie Lipsius, known in musical literature by her pen-name La Mara, who called attention to inaccuracies in the Tenger story in the first of a collection of essays entitled “Classisches und Romantisches aus der Tonwelt,” published in Leipsic in 1891. The same author who, in all her writings on the subject, has stoutly maintained the correctness of Thayer’s theory, made the most valuable contribution yet offered to the controversy by her book, “Beethoven’s Unsterbliche Geliebte. Das Geheimniss der Gräfin Brunsvick und ihre Memoiren,” published by Breitkopf and Härtel in 1909. To this book it is necessary to pay rather extended attention; but before its contents are passed in review it deserves to be noted that Thayer, who followed the multitude of arguments for and against his hypothesis with the greatest interest and with a characteristically open mind, went down to his grave with his strong conviction unshaken that “in greatest probability” the Countess Therese was the “Immortal Beloved.” To La Mara he sent a letter dated January 22, 1892, to which attention was called in a foot-note on the history of the C-sharp minor Sonata in an earlier chapter of this work, and which, through the courtesy of the lady to whom it was addressed, is now given in substance:

... That Mr. Kalischer has adopted Ludwig Nohl’s strange notion of Beethoven’s infatuation for Therese Malfatti, a girl of fourteen years, surprises me; as also that he seems to consider the Cis moll Sonata to be a musical love poem addressed to Julia Guicciardi. He ought certainly to know that the subject of that Sonata was, or rather that it was suggested by, Seume’s little poem “Die Beterin.”

I pray you to stop here and read before proceeding the first part of the Liebesbrief. Note well that it was written from a Badeort so far away from Vienna that he journeyed thither in a coach with four horses and Esterhazy with eight. And now to the essential points.

During the summer of 1801, we know that Beethoven lodged in Hetzendorf—where ex-Kurfürst Franz resided and died July 26, that year—and composed his “Christus am Ölberg” in great part in the near Schönbrunn garden. We know that he wrote on June 29, a very full account of his increasing deafness to Dr. Wegeler. Was he, only seven days later, in a distant Badeort, writing such a love-letter to a young Gräfin not yet seventeen years old? In November he again wrote to Wegeler. “Du willst wissen,” he says, “wie es mir geht, was ich brauche,” and proceeds to describe his physician’s treatment. In neither of these letters is there the remotest hint that the doctor sent him to a distant Badeort. In 1802, Beethoven’s summer lodging was in Heiligenstadt where young Ries came often to receive his master’s instructions. There is not the slightest intimation from him, nor anywhere else, of any absence of Beethoven during that summer. Did Beethoven write the Liebesbriefe in July and the so-called Testament—that document of despair—in October? Observe these dates. In the Liebesbriefe from the Badeort July 6: Ich kam erst Morgens 4 Uhr gestern hier an.” Seven days later, July 13, he was in Vienna writing to Breitkopf and Härtel!

In the Testament we read: Dieses halbe Jahr was ich auf dem Lande zubrachte,” but in no known letter or writing of Beethoven’s of that summer is there any reference to the distant Badeort.

All that is known of Beethoven in the summer of 1801 and 1802, is against the journey to the Badeort; what is known of the summer of 1806 is for it. The burden of proof lies upon Mr. Kalischer. When he can prove such a journey in 1801 or 1802, and does so, it will be one point in his favor.

Testimony of Friends and Relations

The method pursued by La Mara in her investigation, which extended over several years, was much like that of Thayer: in every case in which it seemed that testimony might be had from the mouths of living persons she sought to obtain it. First she visited the Countess Marie Brunswick (or Brunsvik, as the Hungarian branch of the Braunschweigers, or Brunswicks, spelled the name), daughter of Count Franz. There was an interview followed by a correspondence. The Countess said that the family knew nothing whatever of the alleged romantic attachment between her aunt and Beethoven. She recalled that Beethoven had a “grosse Schwärmerei” for her father’s cousin, the Countess Guicciardi, afterwards Gallenberg, but the feeling was not reciprocated on the part of the Countess so far as had been learned. The family was still in possession of three or four letters from Beethoven to her father. In November, 1899, she sent four letters to La Mara which were then owned by her brother, Count Géza Brunswick. Three of these letters had already been printed in the first edition of this biography. The only one bearing on the subject of this study was that in which Beethoven begs the Count to kiss his sister Therese. (This letter La Mara presents in facsimile in her book.) Count Gallenberg (son of the Countess Giulietta and the last of the family) had died in Vienna in 1893, two years after he had denied that there had been any talk of marriage or mutual love between his mother and Beethoven. The testimony of two grand-children of the Countess Giulietta was asked. “Beethoven wanted to marry grandmamma,” said the Countess Bertha Kuenburg, née Countess Stolberg-Stolberg, in Salzburg, “but she loved Gallenberg.” Baroness Hess-Diller, née Countess Gallenberg, in Baden said:

Among our family papers there is absolutely nothing bearing on the matter—no letters, no diary. The prejudices of the period, the incredible point of view held by persons of our station towards artists, even towards artists of Beethoven’s greatness, may have been responsible for the fact that no interest was felt in the matter. All that verbal tradition has brought down to me is summed up in the one circumstance that Beethoven figured only as a music-teacher in the house of my great-grand-parents.

On the suggestion of the grand-children of the Countess Giulietta, La Mara called on Fräulein Karoline Languider, a life-long friend of the Gallenbergs, who had lived with them and the Countess Marie Brunswick. This witness testified:

I do not believe that the Schwärmerei for Countess Julia Gallenberg-Guicciardi—though it may have been warm and wonderful, for she was a very beautiful, elegant woman of the world—ever took such possession of the heart of Beethoven as did the later love for Countess Therese Brunsvick, which led to an engagement. That was decidedly his profoundest love, and that it did not result in marriage, it is said, was due to the—what shall I call it?—real artistic temperament (Natur) of Beethoven, who, in spite of his great love, could not make up his mind to get married. It is said that Countess Therese took it greatly to heart. Having lived during my childhood with my parents in Pressburg, I often heard—with childish ears, of course—persons speak about the matter, and am able to remember that Countess Therese was greatly beloved, and that my mother was always very glad when she came to Pressburg, which was every year.

La Mara having sent Fräulein Languider some of her writings and a copy of Lampi’s portrait of the Countess Therese, she wrote on January 24, 1901: “After all that has been said pro and contra I remain of the unalterable opinion that the Countess Therese was the ‘Immortal Beloved’ and fiancée of the great master, concerning which fact I heard innumerable conversations in my childhood, and that the portrait is hers. Countess Marie does not see a resemblance, but I do not trust her memory.” Countess Marie Brunswick had said to La Mara that she did not consider the painting which is now preserved in the Beethovenhaus in Bonn a portrait of her aunt; “but,” says La Mara, “since there was a difference of 57 years, she could no longer judge of a likeness with the youthful picture.”

Count Géza Brunswick, son of Beethoven’s friend, died in the spring of 1902, having outlived his sister Marie. The direct line of Brunswicks reached its end in him. The castles Korompa and Martonvásár passed into other hands. Count Franz’s art collection was sold at auction in Vienna, but the widow of Count Géza retained possession of the Beethoven relics (the letters and an oil portrait) and took them with her to Florence, where subsequently she married the Marchese Capponi. She, too, gave her testimony: “It is certain that there were soul-relationships between Beethoven and Therese Brunsvik.”

Next, La Mara went to Pressburg (in search of such traditions as Thayer had found in Pesth), working on the hint thrown out by Fräulein Languider. In Pressburg she met Johann Batka, municipal archivist, who bore testimony to the fact that a relative of the Countess Therese Brunswick, who was in possession of her memoirs (a copy, evidently, since La Mara obtained the original from the family of Count Deym), had persuaded him to believe that Therese was the “Immortal Beloved” and secret fiancée of Beethoven. After La Mara had published the results of her investigation in the January number for 1908 of the “Neue Rundschau,” the grand-niece of Countess Therese, Isabella, Countess Deym, and her sister Madame Ilka Melichar, confirmed the statement that the letter had been addressed to their illustrious grand-aunt. An estrangement had sprung up between Count Franz and his sister Therese after his marriage; but the intimacy between the sisters Therese and Josephine, Countess Deym, had continued, and the romance, never known to the families of Count Franz and his sister Countess Teleky, had come down as a tradition in the family of Count Deym.

The rest of La Mara’s book is filled with the memoirs of Therese Brunswick, which she began writing in September, 1846, and called “My Half-Century.” In introducing the interesting document, La Mara thought herself compelled to abandon Thayer’s contention that the love-letter had been written in 1806, and substituted 1807 (a date urged also by Ladislaw Jachinecki, in an article published in the “Zeitschrift der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft” for July and August, 1908), on the ground that 1806 had become untenable, 1807 agreed with the almanac and that Beethoven’s sojourn at Baden in the summer of 1807 did not preclude a visit to Hungary of three weeks’ duration between the end of June and July 26. La Mara was persuaded to make the change by her discovery in the memoirs of the fact that on July 5, 1806, Countess Therese was in Transylvania visiting her sister Charlotte, Countess Teleky, and was present when the latter gave birth to a daughter, Blanca, on that date. Having assumed, with Thayer, that Beethoven wrote the love-letter very soon after a visit to the Brunswicks at Korompa (which is her reading of the mysterious “K” in the letter), and sent it from a neighboring watering-place, convinced that Therese was with her sister on July 6, 1806, she adopted the theory that the letter was written in 1807, in which year the much-discussed 6th of July fell on a Monday. She also alludes to other evidence which she does not describe but by which she doubtless means a letter by Beethoven to Breitkopf and Härtel dated “Vienna, July 5, 1806,” which became known to the investigators when the well-known publishers of Leipsic made a private publication of the letters from the composer found in their archives. This was after the death of Mr. Thayer. Touching this letter and the significance of Beethoven’s “K” the writer of this note submits, without argument, a few suggestions:

New Suggestions Concerning the Letter

1. There is nothing in the letter, beyond what might be called its atmosphere, to indicate that Beethoven had recently visited the object of his love. The words “To-day—yesterday—what tearful longings for you,” to which such an interpretation might be given, plainly refer only to his mood and his thoughts on the two days when the letter was in his mind; they tell us nothing about the distance or time which lay between him and his “ferne Geliebte.”

2. It is plain that Beethoven and Prince Esterhazy started from the same place for the Hungarian watering-place whence the letter was sent (if it ever was sent), Beethoven travelling by an unusual route because of a lack of horses, the Prince by the usual route. It is anything but likely that this place was Martonvásár; it is much more probable that it was one of Esterhazy’s country-seats.

3. There is no indication in the letter or anywhere else how long Beethoven was en route, but the journey extended over several stages, for “at the stage before the last” he was warned not to travel at night, etc. He may have been as far in the interior of Hungary as a post-coach could carry him in, let us say, two days.

4. We know nothing about the rapidity of travel over Hungarian roads a century ago, but we do know that as early as 1635, i. e., 171 years before Beethoven made the journey, an English post was established which made the trip from London to Edinburgh and back in six days; and Edinburgh is 357 miles from London by road. The English mail-coach, therefore travelled an average of 119 miles in 24 hours. At even half of this speed Beethoven might have been comparatively near the place in which Countess Therese spent June and July, 1806.

5. This place was not Korompa, but may have been Klausenburg or Kolosz, the principal town of Transylvania, where Count Teleky lived. This is at least remotely possible.

6. It is but natural to assume that the post between the important places of Hungary and the metropolis of Transylvania ran fairly often and at fair speed, and if Beethoven expected that a letter which he thought would be detained at the place where it was posted till early on Thursday morning would not reach its destination till Saturday, that destination must have been at a considerable distance (a two days’ run) from the watering-place. “So near, so far!” has little value as evidence; it is an ecstatic commonplace concerning the unattainable, or that which seems to be so.

7. The fact that the Countess Therese was not at Korompa in the early part of July, 1806, is not in itself a sufficient reason for abandoning that date; she was at Klausenburg. The letter to Breitkopf and Härtel, though plainly dated “Vienna, July 5, 1806” (Kalischer, No. 109), might easily be disposed of as convincing evidence against 1806, if it did not bear the publishers’ endorsement apparently indicating that it had either been received or answered on July 11 of the year. Nothing could make Beethoven’s carelessness in respect of dates plainer than the next letter of Beethoven’s in which he replied to the letter which Breitkopf and Härtel had sent him in answer to the proposition which he had made in the letter dated July 5, 1806. The second letter is dated “Grätz, am 3ten Heu-Monat,” (i.e., Hay month, otherwise July); yet it refers to the earlier letter and was written at Troppau in Austrian Silesia, where Beethoven spent the fall of 1806 as the guest of Prince Lichnowsky. Breitkopf and Härtel’s endorsement shows that the letter was received and answered in September. There is some significance, too, in the fact that Beethoven refers to his journey from Vienna to Troppau, which must have been nearly 200 miles long, as a short one (“Etwas viel zu thun und die kleine Reise hierher,” etc.). (See Kalischer, Letter No. 110.) Beethoven may have written the letter in Vienna on one of the first two days of July, or even the last of June, making one of his characteristic blunders in the dating, and yet have been deep in Hungary on the dubious date on which he wrote the love-letter. The endorsement of Breitkopf and Härtel, “July 5, 1806,” could not have been anything more than a transcript of the date found on the letter.

The editor is well aware that his suggestions do not clear up the mystery; he offers them nevertheless for what they are now or may hereafter be worth. The references to Beethoven in the Memoirs of Therese Brunswick made public by La Mara are to be found in the following excerpts:

The Memoirs of Therese von Brunswick

During the extraordinary sojourn of 18 days in Vienna my mother desired that her two daughters, Therese and Josephine, receive Beethoven’s invaluable instruction in music. Adalbert Rosti, a schoolmate of my brother’s, assured us that Beethoven would not be persuaded to accept a mere invitation; but if Her Excellency were willing to climb the three flights of winding stairs of the house in St. Peter’s Place, and make him a visit, he would vouch for a successful outcome of the mission. It was done. Like a schoolgirl, with Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Violoncello and Pianoforte under my arm, we entered. The immortal, dear Louis van Beethoven was very friendly and as polite as he could be. After a few phrases de part et d’autre, he sat me down at his pianoforte, which was out of tune, and I began at once to sing the violin and the ’cello parts and played right well. This delighted him so much that he promised to come every day to the Hotel zum Erzherzog Carl—then Goldenen Greifen. It was May in the last year of the last century. He came regularly, but instead of an hour frequently staid from 12 to 4 or 5 o’clock, and never grew weary of holding down and bending my fingers, which I had been taught to lift high and hold straight. The noble man must have been satisfied, for he never missed a single day in the 16.... It was then that the most intimate and cordial friendship was closely established with Beethoven, a friendship which lasted to the end of his life. He came to Ofen; he came to Martonvásár; he was initiated into our social republic of chosen people. A round spot was planted with high, noble lindens; each tree had the name of a member, and even in their sorrowful absence we conversed with their symbols, and were entertained and instructed by them. Often after giving the good-morning greeting I asked the tree concerning this and the other thing which I desired to have explained, and it never failed to answer me.

Later, speaking of the loss of caste and poverty of her brother-in-law Count Deym (who had changed his name to Müller because of a duel fought before he had attained his majority, and conducted an art museum, and who after his marriage to Therese’s sister Josephine tried in vain to take the position in society to which his rank entitled him), the Countess writes:

The aristocracy turned its back on him because he had gone into business. He could not hunt up his former rich acquaintances. Beethoven was the faithful visitor at the house of the young Countess—he gave her lessons gratis and to be tolerated one had to be a Beethoven. The numerous relatives, the sisters of her father and their children, frequently visited their amiable niece. Tableaux were occasionally given; Deym, being himself an artist, was at home in such matters, they gave him pleasure.... There were musical soirées. My brother came in vacation-time and made the acquaintance of Beethoven. The two musical geniuses became intimately associated with each other, and my brother never deserted his friend in his frequent financial troubles until his, alas! too early death.

It was about this time (1814) that Baron C. P. came very often to Martonvásár. He was fond of my brother and wanted to learn the science of agriculture from him and his men. We played chess with each other; he conceived a passion for me and tried to embrace me. From that moment onward he frequently repeated his offers and waited two years for my assent—for I always answered that I should have to ponder the matter and had had no time to do so. I had remained cold, an earlier passion had devoured my heart. Josephine needed me, her children, who were very promising, loved me and I them—how could I withdraw myself from such a magic circle? When I was active with the Women’s Association after the great famine of 1819, we met on the street. I was in a carriage and had the coachman stop at a signal from him. He came to the carriage and said significantly, “Have you pondered, dear Therese? it is the last time I shall ask you. I am going to Dresden and shall there take a bride unless you make up your mind.” I laughingly gave him my old answer, heart and head being occupied with the widespread misery: “I really haven’t had time, dear Carl.” We parted—he became my enemy.

Recent Investigations in France

Shortly after the appearance of La Mara’s essay in 1909, a singular contribution to the controversy touching the “Immortal Beloved” came from France. The essay had been reviewed in the “Revue des Deux Mondes,” whereupon the editor of “Le Temps” asked one of its contributors to make inquiry as to possible family traditions of the mother of M. F. de Gerando, a grand-niece of the Countess Therese. This was done, but the lady would hear nothing of an identification of her grand-aunt with the object of Beethoven’s passion. Then came journalistic insinuations that family pride had much to do with the denial. This provoked M. de Gerando, who undertook, in the “Mercure de France,” to answer the arguments of Thayer and La Mara. There was one ludicrous feature in his argument and a new revelation. He disposed of the kiss sent to Therese by Beethoven through her brother Count Franz, by saying it was only such a familiarity as an old man might be permitted to indulge towards a young pupil; this notwithstanding that Therese was born in 1775 and Beethoven in 1770 and at the time he wrote the love-letter was still laboring under the delusion that the year of his birth was 1772. The revelation consisted in the circumstance, set forth by him, that among the letters of the Countess Therese he had found a thick portfolio inscribed “The Journal of my Heart. No Romance,” which (I quote now from an article contributed by Mr. Philip Hale to the “New Music Review,” in the numbers for July and September, 1909)

contained many letters, notes, messages written at all hours, and addressed to a man, whose Christian name was Louis. Mr. de Gerando, who has been unable to learn the family name of this man, thought at first, and naturally, that Beethoven was the one; but this Louis, with whom Therese was passionately in love, to whom she was betrothed, without the knowledge of others, was a young man of noble family, much younger than Therese, and had been educated at the Theresianum in Vienna, a school frequented by young noblemen. “Van Beethoven was older than the Countess Brunsvik. He was not noble by birth. He never attended the Theresianum.” The letters reveal a strange and violent passion. They are at times cold and philosophical. When Therese signed them with her name, they were true love-letters. When she signed them with the Greek word “Diotima,” the name of a priestess of beauty and love mentioned by Plato, they were metaphysical speculations, long-winded discussions on the end of life and the nature of love. “I do not think that Beethoven would have been contented with this correspondence of encyclopædists.” There were a few letters from Louis, one of them sealed with a coat of arms, and thus there is hope of identification.

One might answer, continues Mr. Hale, that Therese perhaps loved twice; that there were two Louis in the field. Mr. de Gerando does not find this probable. Therese was cerebral in her passion. She knew passion, but her intellectual side revolted at it, and, when her brain controlled her, she could write phrases like this: “To think that I could have lowered myself even to the point of marrying him!” (But, one might reply, the countess might well have said this with reference to Beethoven, who was beneath her in station.) She rained contempt on the man who had awakened in her the love that she detested, and when she had driven him from her mind, she wrote exultantly: “Free! Free! Free!” Mr. de Gerando argues from this that she would not a second time have given up her independence, but nothing that a woman like Therese would have done should surprise even a great-grand-nephew.

Mr. de Gerando does not understand how any love affair between Therese and Beethoven could have escaped the curious gossips in society, eager for news and scandal. “The adventure of Therese de Brunsvik with Louis appears to me to be a sufficient reason to judge the theory of Thayer inane. At the same time it explains to us the genesis of this theory. It is now certain, as far as I am concerned, that some resemblance of the affair between the Countess of Brunsvik and Louis had come down to Thayer. The similarity of the names, the letter in which the kiss was sent, and other and more vague indices, led the American biographer to turn the noble Hungarian dame into the ‘well-beloved’ of Beethoven.” Such was, in substance, the article of Mr. de Gerando. It is fair to ask him how the love affair between Therese and the mysterious Louis, young, noble, etc., escaped the curious gossips, escaped them so completely that even the great-grand-nephew of Therese is unable to find out the family name of her lover.