The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I — John Shaqi
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IThayer, Alexander Wheelock
History
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
In 1695 a decree issued at Liège by Joseph Clemens, then in that city
as titular bishop, though not consecrated, adds three new names to the
“Hoff-Musici,” one of which, Van den Eeden, constantly reappears in the
documents and calendars down to the year 1782. From a list of payments
at Liège in the second quarter of 1696, we find that Henri Vandeneden
(Heinrich Van den Eeden) was a bass singer, and that the aggregate
of vocalists, instrumentists, with the organ-blower (_calcant_), was
eighteen persons.
Returned to Bonn, Joseph Clemens resumed his plan of improving his
music, and for those days of small orchestras and niggardly salaries he
set it upon a rather generous foundation. A decree of April 1, 1698,
put in force the next month, names 22 persons with salaries aggregating
8,890 florins.
POLITICAL VICISSITUDES OF THE ELECTORATE
After the death of Maximilian Heinrich the government passed into the
hands of Cardinal Fürstenberg, his coadjutor, who owed the position to
the intrigues of Louis XIV, and now used it by all possible means to
promote French interests. The king’s troops under French commanders,
he admitted into the principal towns of the electorate, and, for his
own protection, a French garrison of 10,000 men into Bonn. War was
the consequence; an imperial army successfully invaded the province,
and, advancing to the capital, subjected its unfortunate inhabitants
to all the horrors of a relentless siege, that ended October 15, 1689,
in the expulsion of the garrison, now reduced to some 3900 men, of
whom 1500 were invalids. Yet in the war of the Spanish Succession
which opened in 1701, notwithstanding the terrible lesson taught only
eleven years before, the infatuated Joseph Clemens embraced the party
of Louis. Emperor Leopold treated him with singular mildness, in vain.
The Elector persisted. In 1702 he was therefore excluded from the
civil government and fled from Bonn, the ecclesiastical authority in
Cologne being empowered by the Emperor to rule in his stead. The next
year, the great success of the French armies against the allies was
celebrated by Joseph Clemens with all pomp in Namur, where he then was;
but his triumph was short. John Churchill, then Earl of Marlborough,
took the field as commander-in-chief of the armies of the allies. His
foresight, energy and astonishing skill in action justified Addison’s
simile--whether sublime or only pompous--of the angel riding in the
whirlwind and directing the storm. He was soon at Cologne, whence he
despatched Cochorn to besiege Bonn. That great general executed his
task with such skill and impetuosity, that on May 15 (1703) all was
ready for storming the city, when d’Allègre, the French commander,
offered to capitulate, and on the 19th was allowed to retire. “Now
was Bonn for the third time wrested from the hands of the French and
restored to the archbishopric, but alas, in a condition that aroused
indignation, grief and compassion on all sides,” says Müller.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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