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.
Chapter XXII
The Year 1802—The Heiligenstadt Will—Beethoven’s Views on Arrangements—A Defence of Beethoven’s Brothers—The Slanders of Romancers and Unscrupulous Biographers—Compositions and Publications of the Year.