This he accomplished at the elector's expense, being sent by him to complete his studies under the direction of Haydn. That great man failed to perceive how fine a genius had been intrusted to him. Nature had endowed them with opposite qualities; the inspiration of Haydn was under the dominion of order and method; that of Beethoven sported with them both, and set both at defiance.
When Haydn was questioned of the merits of his pupil, he would answer with a shrug of his shoulders—"He executes extremely well." If his early productions were cited as giving evidence of talent and fire, he would reply, "He touches the instrument admirably." To Mozart belonged the praise of having recognized at once, and proclaimed to his friends, the wonderful powers of the young composer.
Sauntering.
NO. 11.
Among the churches of Paris which I visited in my saunterings, whose very stones seemed to have a tongue and cry aloud, was the interesting one of St. Germain des Près.
"Each shrine and tomb within thee seems to cry."
Here were buried Mabillon and Descartes, and also King Casimir of Poland, who laid aside his crown for a cowl in 1668, and died abbot of the monastery in 1672. He is represented kneeling on his tomb offering his crown to heaven. Two of the Douglases are likewise buried here, with their carved effigies lying on their tombs clad in armor. One was the seventeenth earl, who died in 1611. He had been bred a Protestant, but, going to France in the time of Henry III., was converted to the faith of his fathers, those old knights of the Bleeding Heart, by the discourses at the Sorbonne. He returned to Scotland after his conversion, but was persecuted there on account of his religion, and had the choice of prison or banishment. So he chose to be exiled, and went back to France, where he ended his days in practices of piety. He used to attend the canonical hours at the abbey of St. Germain des Près, and even rose for the midnight office. It was no unusual thing in the middle ages for the laity to assist at the night offices, and the church encouraged the practice. There was a confraternity in Paris, in the thirteenth century, composed of devout persons who used to attend the midnight service. This was not confined to men, but even ladies did the same. Many people used to pass whole nights in prayer in the churches, as, for example, King Louis IX. and Sir Thomas More.
There is in this church a statue of the Blessed Virgin, under a Gothic canopy all of stone, at the west end of the edifice, and looking up the right aisle. It pleased me so much that I never passed the church afterward without turning aside for a moment to say my Ave before it. Tapers were always burning before it, and there was always some one in prayer, who, like me, would doubtless forget for a few moments the cares and vanities of life at the feet of the Mother of Sorrows. This statue was at St. Denis before the revolution, having been given to that church by Queen Jeanne D'Evereux.