Suffering from the mania of the time, Jerome preferred the Italians in matters of music, and had surrounded himself with Italian musicians. The Mozarts were, in consequence, set back in every way and made the victims of “persecution and contempt.” All the elements of variance were here. A breach was inevitable; for on the one side were the father and son, both very frank, clear-headed and witty; Wolfgang, with something in him of the impetuosity of youth, conscious of his power and of the opinion which the world had of him, a consciousness which he took no trouble to conceal; on the other the archbishop, whose peculiarity it was to allow himself to be impressed by persons of fine, handsome figure, but not to respect little, insignificant-looking people like the slender, twenty-year-old Mozart. We have Mozart’s letter to the archbishop. It saw the light--being found among the official papers of the archbishopric--just one hundred years after it was written. It gives us a great deal of information concerning a circumstance which had a great influence on Mozart’s life, and which was finally the cause of the most decided catastrophes to him. It shows us, at the same time, what was the entire tone of the period, and especially of Salzburg subserviency. Mozart writes: “TO HIS ILLUSTRIOUS GRACE, MOST REVEREND PRINCE OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: _Most Gracious Liege-Lord and Herr Herr!_ I dare not trouble your illustrious grace with any minute description of our pitiful circumstances. My father has most humbly, upon his honor and conscience, and with all truth, called the attention of your illustrious grace to those circumstances in his most humble petition presented to your grace on the 14th of March of this year. But as your illustrious grace’s most gracious and propitious decision, which was hoped for, did not come to him, my father would have most humbly begged your illustrious grace, as long ago as the month of June, most graciously to allow us to make a journey of a few months, to the end that we might in this way do something to help ourselves in our necessity, were it not that your illustrious grace most graciously ordered that all your grace’s musicians should keep themselves in readiness for the occasion of his imperial majesty’s [Joseph II] passage through your grace’s city. After this, my father most humbly asked this same permission, but your illustrious grace refused it to him, and most graciously expressed a conviction that I, who am only half engaged in your grace’s service, might travel alone. Our circumstances are those of urgent need. My father resolved to send me on my way alone. But here also your illustrious grace interposed some most gracious objections. Most gracious liege-lord and _Herr Herr_, parents laboriously strive to put their children in a position such that they may earn their own daily bread; and this is a duty which they owe to themselves and to the state.