The first fact I knew; of the second I was in ignorance until suddenly Chapelmaster Reichardt came to me and said: “Beethoven positively would not accept the post in Cassel; would I as Beethoven’s only pupil go there on a smaller salary?” I did not believe the first, went at once to Beethoven to learn the truth about it and to ask his advice. I was turned away for three weeks--even my letters on the subject were unanswered. Finally I found Beethoven at the Ridotto. I went to him and told him the reason of my inquiries, whereupon he said in a cutting tone: “~So--do you think that you can fill a position which was offered to me?~” He remained cold and repellant. The next morning I went to him to get an understanding. His servant said to me gruffly: “My master is not at home,” although I heard him singing and playing in the next room. Since the servant positively refused to announce me I resolved to go right in; but he sprang to the door and pushed me back. Enraged by this I grabbed him by the throat and hurled him down. Beethoven, hearing the racket, dashed out and found his servant still lying on the floor and me pale as death. Angrily excited, I so deluged him with reproaches that he stood motionless and speechless with surprise. When the matter was finally explained to him he said, “I did not understand it so; I was told that you were trying to get the appointment behind my back.” On my assuring him that I had not yet even given an answer, he at once went out with me to make the mistake good. But it was too late; I did not get the appointment, though it would have been a piece of great good fortune for me at that time. It requires no great sagacity to perceive from the text of the “Agreement,” that neither of its signers had any expectation that Beethoven could ever perform the duties of an Imperial Conductor acceptably; and his hope of obtaining the title must have rested upon the influence, which he supposed Archduke Rudolph might exert upon Emperor Franz. Be this as it may, the composer was justly elated by the favorable change in his pecuniary condition; and his very natural exultation peeps out in the correspondence of the time. While the business was still undecided, Gleichenstein had departed on a visit to his native Freiburg, via Munich, taking with him a letter of introduction, the contents of which Beethoven himself thus epitomises: Here, my dear fellow, is the letter to Winter. First it says that you are my friend--secondly, what you are, namely ~K. K. Hofconcipist~--thirdly, that you are not a connoisseur of music but nevertheless a friend of all that is ~beautiful~ and ~good~--in view of which I have asked the chapelmaster in case anything of his is performed to let you participate in it.... On March 18, Gleichenstein received a copy or abstract of the contract enclosed in this: