Yesterday at three o'clock I was summoned by the Archduke. When I went in he was standing in the first room by the stove, and he came straight up to me and asked if I had anything to do to-day? "No, your royal highness, nothing at all; but even were it otherwise, I should be delighted to place my time at the disposal of your Royal Highness." "No, no; I do not want to disturb anybody." Then he said that he had a mind to give a concert in the evening at the Würtemberg court, and would like me to play something and to accompany the songs; I was to go to him again at six o'clock. I played there last evening accordingly. At the same time, Mozart could not conceal from himself that the Archduke had changed very much to his disadvantage:-- Before he was a priest he was much wittier and more intellectual, and spoke less but more sensibly. You should see him now! Stupidity stares out of his eyes, he talks and chatters without stopping, and all in a sort of falsetto voice; he has a swollen neck; in short, the whole man is transformed! {FIRST ATTEMPTS IN VIENNA.} (198) Nevertheless he continued to patronise Mozart, drew him out on every occasion, and if he had only been Elector of Cologne, Mozart would have been kapellmeister by this time, as he told his father. He had used his influence with the Princess to take Mozart as her music-master, but received for answer that if it depended on herself she would certainly have chosen him, but the Emperor--"he cares for no one but Salieri," cries Mozart in disgust--had recommended Salieri to her on account of his singing, and she felt obliged to engage him, to her great regret. It was quite true that Salieri stood high in the favour of Joseph II. He had been pupil of the Emperor's special favourite Gassmann, and had in a sense grown up under the royal eye;[30] he was regularly engaged at the imperial private concerts, and retained possession of his patron's favour by means both of his music and his personal demeanour. It was plain, therefore, that the preference for Salieri shown by the Emperor on this occasion did not arise from any ill-will towards Mozart; he was in close personal intercourse with Salieri, and esteemed him highly as a vocal composer, while Mozart was only known to him as a clavier-player. As such he had great admiration for him, and Mozart informed his father (December 26, 1781) that the Emperor had lately "passed the greatest _éloge_ on him in the words 'C'est un talent décidé.'" He had also (on December 14) commanded Mozart to play at court, and had arranged for him a contest of skill with Clementi, who had come to Vienna with the reputation of a clavier-player of unheard-of excellence. Clementi relates the encounter to his pupil L. Berger:[31]--