They were childless; with the utmost delicacy it was proposed to Beethoven in 1794 that he should come to them; he accepted the offer in the spirit in which it was made, and for several years was an inmate of the Lichnowski Palace, treated with more than parental tenderness by the Prince and Princess. The latter took the place of Madame von Breuning, and Beethoven used afterwards to say laughingly, "They wanted to train me there with _grandmotherly_ love; and the Princess Christiane would have liked to put a glass case over me, so that no evil might come nigh me." Not that there was never any misunderstanding between Beethoven and his patron; on the contrary, the Princess had very often to mediate between them. How could it be otherwise? it was not easy for the powerful, impulsive mind of Beethoven, with his previous training, to accommodate itself to the smooth, etiquette-trammelled life of a palace. To abide by a settled routine was to him impossible; and after a few ineffectual struggles the attempt to make him do so was abandoned, and the artist left free to develop himself in his own way. Wegeler relates that when he came to Vienna he found Beethoven installed in the Lichnowski Palace, but by no means so content with his position as one would imagine. Amongst other things he complained to him that the Prince's dinner-hour was fixed at four o'clock. "Now," said he, "I ought to be at home by half-past three to dress and trim my beard, &c. I could not stand that!" So some restaurant was more frequently honoured by his presence than the Lichnowski dinner-table. It must not be thought that Beethoven forfeited any of his independence by thus becoming an inmate of the palace. On the contrary, he knew well, and the Prince did also, that the advantage was mutual. If he had a zealous and wealthy patron, the Prince had in return the benefit of the constant presence of the first pianist and improvisatore of the day at all his _Musikabende_, besides the _éclat_ attached to the fact that so many of the composer's productions were first performed at his house. Not that either of them ever coolly balanced the one set of advantages over against the other. This was in point of fact the relation between them; in reality it was more like that of father and son. The critical judgment of the Prince was highly esteemed by Beethoven, who often allowed himself to be persuaded by him into making alterations which no other influence had power to effect; and his proficiency as a pianoforte-player, which enabled him to master with comparative ease the difficulties in the new style inaugurated by his _protégé_, confirmed Beethoven in his own views, and gave him fresh strength to resist those who would have had him adopt a more simple manner of writing.