Except this notice of his bearing and demeanor, there is a complete hiatus in Beethoven’s history from his appearance in the Singakademie until the following November. The so-called Fischoff Manuscript has, it is true, a story of a “dangerous illness” which was caused by his own imprudence this summer; but as it is in date utterly irreconcilable with other known facts, it will receive its due consideration hereafter. The most plausible suggestion is that coming back, flushed with victory, with the success of his tour and delighted with the novelty of travelling at his ease, he made that excursion to Pressburg and Pesth of which afterwards Ries was informed and made record (“Notizen,” page 109), but of which no other account is known. ATTEMPTS AT PATRIOTIC MUSIC And thus we come to November. This was the year of that astounding series of victories ending at Arcole, gained by the young French general Napoleon Bonaparte. The Austrian government and people alike saw and feared the danger of invasion, a general uprising took place and volunteer corps were formed in all quarters. For the Vienna corps, Friedelberg wrote his “Abschiedsgesang an Wiens Bürger beim Auszug der Fahnen-Division der Wiener Freiwilliger,” and Beethoven set it to music. The original printed edition bears date “November 15, 1795.” It does not appear to have gained any great popularity, and a drinking-song (“Lasst das Herz uns froh erheben”) was afterwards substituted for Friedelberg’s text, and published by Schott in Mayence. The rapid progress of the French army had caused the Germans in Italy to become distrustful of the future and to hasten homeward. Among them were Beethoven’s old companions in the Bonn orchestra, the cousins Andreas and Bernhard Romberg, who in the spring of this year (May 26th), had kissed the hand of the Queen of Naples, daughter of the Empress Maria Theresia, and then departed to Rome to join another friend of the Bonn period, Karl Kügelgen. The three coming north arrived at Vienna in the autumn; the Rombergs remained there for a space with Beethoven, while Kügelgen proceeded to Berlin. Baron von Braun--not to be mistaken for Beethoven’s “first Mæcenas” the Russian Count Browne--had heard the cousins the year before in Munich and invited them “to give Vienna an opportunity to hear them.” There is no notice of their concert in the Vienna newspapers of the period, and the date is unknown. From Lenz von Breuning is gleaned an additional fact which alone gives interest to the concert for us. He writes to Wegeler in January, 1797--not 1796, as erroneously printed in the appendix to the “Notizen,” page 20--and after the meeting with the von Breunings at Nuremberg: