The Herrengasse is still “die Strasse links” at the extremity of the village, as it was then; but the multiplication of houses and the change in their numbers render it uncertain which in those days bore the number 4. At all events it had, in 1803, gardens, vineyards or green fields both in front and rear. True, it was half an hour’s walk farther than from Heiligenstadt to the scenes in which he had composed the second Symphony, the preceding summer; but, to compensate for this, it was so much nearer the city--was in the more immediate vicinity of that arm of the Danube called the “Canal”--and almost under its windows was the gorge of the Krottenbach, which separates Döbling from Heiligenstadt, and which, as it extends inland from the river, spreads into a fine vale, then very solitary and still very beautiful. This was the house, this the summer, and these the scenes, in which the composer wrought out the conceptions that during the past five years had been assuming form and consistency in his mind, to which Bernadotte may have given the original impulse, and which we know as the “Heroic Symphony.”[11] Let us turn to Stephan von Breuning and a new friend or two. Archduke Karl, by a commission dated January 9, 1801, had been made Chief of the “Staats- und Konferenzial-Departement für das Kriegs- und Marine-Wesen,” and retained the position still, notwithstanding his assumption of the functions of Hoch- und Deutsch-Meister. He undertook to introduce a wide-reaching reform at the War Department, which demanded an increase in the number of Secretaries and scriveners. Stephan von Breuning is the second in the list of five appointed in 1804, Ignatz von Gleichenstein the fifth. It is believed, that the Archduke had discovered the fine business talents, the zeal in the discharge of duty and the perfect trustworthiness of Breuning at the Teutonic House, and that at his special invitation the young man this year exchanged the service of the Order for that of the State. There is abundant evidence, that the young Rhinelanders then in Vienna were bound to each other by more than the usual ties: most of them were fugitives from French tyranny, and liable to conscription if found in the places of their birth, though this was not the case with Breuning. There was, in addition to the ordinary feeling of nationality, a common sense of exile to unite them. Between Breuning and Gleichenstein therefore--two amiable and talented young men thus thrown into daily intercourse--an immediate and warm friendship would naturally spring up; and an introduction of the latter to Breuning’s friend Beethoven would inevitably follow, in case they had not known each other in the old Bonn days. [Sidenote: ASSOCIATION WITH W. J. MÄHLER]