Elizabeth of Russia, with whom he conversed in his customary frank, open way, completely setting aside all etiquette; while she, on her part, expressed the highest veneration for the composer, and at her departure left him a gift of two hundred ducats, which he acknowledged after his own fashion by dedicating to her his brilliant Polonaise, Op. 89. This was the only substantial result to our poverty-stricken Beethoven of the attachment professed by the whole of the gay throng! The bright episode of the Congress, with its fêtes and triumphs, soon flitted past, bringing out in sterner and darker contrast the days which followed. Beethoven had dedicated his "Battle of Vittoria" to the Prince Regent of England (George IV.), but to his great chagrin, no notice was taken of it. He alludes to this in a letter to Ries, and referring to the Prince's well-known character of _gourmand_, says, "He might at least have sent me a butcher's knife or a turtle!" Another vexation in connection with the symphony, causing him infinite annoyance, arose out of the despicable conduct of Maelzel, afterwards the inventor of the metronome. In the year 1812 he had made the acquaintance of the latter, who had promised to construct for him a sound-conductor, in return for which Beethoven composed a kind of warlike piece for the mechanician's new instrument, the panharmonica, which he was on the point of taking to England for exhibition. The effect of Beethoven's work was so marvellous, that Maelzel urged him to arrange it for the orchestra, and the result was--the "Battle of Vittoria." Maelzel meanwhile went on constructing four machines, only one of which was found available, and Beethoven, without the slightest suspicion of any underhand dealing, allowed him to take the entire management of the concerts for the relief of the wounded. In his hermit life he did not hear much of what was going on around him, and his consternation may therefore be imagined when informed that his false friend was announcing the symphony everywhere as his own property, stating that it had been given to him by Beethoven in return for his machine, and the sum of four hundred guldens which he professed to have lent him! He had actually contrived to have many of the orchestral parts copied out, and those that were wanting supplied by some low musician, and with this mutilated work he was on his way to England. The matter was at once placed in the hands of the law; but it was long before Beethoven recovered from the effects of this fraud; it made him, in fact, suspicious ever after towards copyists. The loan of four hundred guldens proved to have been _fifty_, which Beethoven accepted from him at a time when, as he states in his instructions to his lawyers, he was "in dire necessity; _deserted by every one in Vienna_."