During these years, however, Beethoven had established himself in favor with the musical public with an independence such as no musician up to that time ever achieved. From 1800 on he was in receipt of a small annuity from Prince Lichnowsky, which was increased by the sale of many compositions. In 1809 Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, appears to have offered him the post of master of the chapel at Cassel, with a salary of $1,500 a year and very easy duties. The prospect of losing Beethoven, however, aroused the lovers of music in Vienna to such an extent that three of the nobility--Princes Kinsky and Lobkowitz and Archduke Rudolph, brother of the emperor--guaranteed him a regular stipend in order to insure his continued residence among them. This maintenance, moreover, was given absolutely free from conditions of any sort. In 1815 his brother Caspar Carl died, charging the composer with the care of his son Carl, then a lad about nine years of age. The responsibility was assumed by Beethoven with fervor and enthusiasm, though the boy, as it proved, was far from being worthy of the affectionate care of his distinguished uncle. Moreover, Beethoven was now constantly in ill health, and often in trouble over lodgings, servants, and the like. In spite of these preoccupations the composition of masterpieces went on, though undoubtedly with difficulty and pain, since their author was robbed of that peace of mind so necessary to health and great achievements. The nephew kept his hold on his uncle’s affection to the end, was made heir to his property, and at the last commended to the care of Beethoven’s old advocate, Dr. Bach. In November, 1826, the master, while making a journey from his brother’s house at Gneixendorf, took cold and arrived at his home in Vienna, the Swarzspanierhaus, mortally ill with inflammation of the stomach and dropsy. The disease abated for a time and Beethoven, though still confined to his bed, was again eager for work. In March of the following year, however, he grew steadily worse, received the sacraments of the Roman Church on the twenty-fourth, and two days later, at evening during a tremendous thunder storm, he breathed his last. Stephan von Breuning and Anton Schindler, who had attended him, had gone to the cemetery to choose a burial place, and only Anselm Hüttenbrenner, the friend of both Schubert and Beethoven, was by his side. His funeral, March twenty-ninth, was attended by an immense concourse of people, including all the musicians and many of the nobility of Vienna. In the procession to the church the coffin was borne by eight distinguished members of the opera; thirty-two musicians carried torches, and at the gate of the cemetery there was an address from the pen of the most distinguished Austrian writer of the time, Grillparzer, recited by the actor Anschütz. The grave was on the south side of the cemetery near the spot where, a little more than a year later, Schubert was buried.