This chapter may appropriately close with the one important family event of this year. The father, the mother, two infant brothers and two infant sisters slept in the churchyard at Bonn; but Ludwig, Caspar and Johann were never more to look upon their graves. The three brothers were now reunited. Vienna had become their new home and not one of them beheld the rushing Rhine again. FOOTNOTES: [70] Though Thayer fixed the date of this letter in May or June, 1794, Dr. Deiters believed that it was of a much earlier date; and may, indeed, have been written before Beethoven went to Vienna. For his theory Dr. Deiters found a plausible argument in the spelling of the name with a “w” instead of a “v,” and the reiterated references to a misunderstanding which had long been made right. The letter has no date or superscription and Wegeler assumed that it was the continuation of one whose first page had been lost. If the letter was written in Bonn it would prove that the Rondo (probably that in G for Pianoforte and Violin, B. and H. Series XII, No. 102) was composed before the beginning of the Viennese period; which might well be. The Sonata is probably the unfinished one in C, dedicated to Eleonore von Breuning. [71] This was done by Wegeler’s grandson, Carl Wegeler, in an essay published in the “Coblenz Zeitung” on May 20, 1890. [72] An early example of Beethoven’s fondness for punning. _Stechen_ means many things in German--among them to sting, stab, tilt in a tournament, take a trick at cards--as well as to engrave, or cut in metal. [73] The son of Artaria told Nohl that his father had told him that he got the money to pay Beethoven without the composer’s knowledge from Prince Lichnowsky. [74] It was probably that in B-flat. See Nottebohm’s “Zweite Beethoveniana,” page 72. Chapter XIV The Years 1796 and 1797--Beethoven in Prague and Berlin--King Frederick William II and Prince Louis Ferdinand--Himmel, Fasch and Zelter--Compositions and Publications. The narrative resumes its course with the year 1796, the twenty-sixth of Beethoven’s life and his fourth in Vienna. If not yet officially, he was _de facto_ discharged from his obligations to the Elector Maximilian and all his relations with Bonn and its people were broken off. Vienna had become his home, and there is no reason to suppose that he ever afterwards cherished any real and settled purpose to exchange it for another--not even in 1809 when, for the moment, he had some thought of accepting Jerome Bonaparte’s invitation to Cassel.