In the year 1809 he was offered the post of Kapellmeister to the King of Westphalia, with a salary of six hundred ducats; and this, his great desire of possessing a fixed income made him ready to accept; although he would certainly have been miserable in such a position, as Jerome was not the man to understand either him or his works. Happily, this ordeal was spared him. It was thought derogatory to the dignity of Austria that her greatest composer, the one of whom she had most reason to be proud, should be allowed through pecuniary considerations to quit her bounds; and as the Emperor would do nothing for Beethoven (his abhorrence of etiquette and well-known republican sentiments having prevented his ever getting into favour at Court), an agreement was ultimately entered into by the Archduke Rudolph (Beethoven's pupil, afterwards Archbishop of Olmütz) and the Princes Lobkowitz and Kinsky, to pay the composer annually the sum of four thousand guldens, on condition of his continuing to reside in Vienna. In two years' time this was reduced one-fifth, owing to changes in the Austrian Finance, and subsequently it dwindled down to a mere nothing, from the death and bankruptcy of two of the contracting parties--but Beethoven could get no redress, although he religiously fulfilled his part of the compact. In drawing the money from the executors of Prince Kinsky he was obliged always to send in a proof that he was still in existence. This annoyed him excessively, and he generally had the affair transacted for him by a friend, which on one occasion produced the following laconic voucher to Schindler:-- "CERTIFICATE OF LIFE.--The Fish lives! _vidi_ Pastor Romualdus,"--an allusion to his eccentric use of water when composing. In this year also occurred the bombardment of Vienna, out of which Ries has contrived to bring forward an implied accusation of cowardice against the composer, in his statement that Beethoven hid himself in a cellar, burying his head among cushions that he might not hear the firing. The explanation of this lies on the surface; if he did take refuge underground it was only what every other inhabitant of the city, whose duty did not call him elsewhere, was doing; and as for the cushions--the vibration of the cannonade heard in that vault must have been agony to his diseased nerve. Had Beethoven really been alarmed he might easily have quitted Vienna. Cowardice in any form is the last vice that could be attributed to him; resolute and firm, he feared no danger.