_Je m’empresse de vous prévenir, Monsieur, que le Roi a accueillé avec bonté l’hommage de la Partition de Votre Messe en Musique et m’a chargé de vous faire parvenir une medaille d’or à son effigie. Je me félicite d’avoir à vous transmettre le témoinage de la satisfaction de Sa Majesté et je saisis cette occasion de vous offrir l’assurance de ma considération distinguée._ _Le Premier Gentilhomme de la Chambre du Roi_ Aux Tuileries ce 20 Février 1824. Le duc d’Achâts. “This was a distinction,” says Schindler, “than which one more significant never fell to the lot of the artist during his life”; but the biographer certainly is in error when he intimates that the medal was given in payment of the subscription price. Beethoven informed Archduke Rudolph that the King had accepted the invitation in his letter of June 1, 1823; the medal was received early in 1824, over eight months later. Beethoven’s needs and the reply which he gave the messenger from Prussia when he offered a decoration instead of the 50 ducats, indicate plainly enough how he felt as to the remuneration. Moreover, in a billet which he sent to Schindler instructing him to call upon von Obreskow of the Russian Embassy to tell him how to pay the subscription of the Czar, Beethoven says: “let him know incidentally, when opportunity offers, that France simply sent the money to you.” Evidently King Louis XVIII paid the money in the regular way and sent the medal as a special mark of distinction. No subscription was received from the King of Naples. The negotiations with the Grand Duke of Tuscany were more successful, though they dragged on into the next year. They were a subject of discussion in the Conversation Book in which Count Lichnowsky, Brother Johann and Nephew Karl took part. From remarks there recorded it appears that an appeal was also made to Ex-Empress Maria Louisa, Duchess of Parma. Here the agent was Odelga and there was a plan to interest Countess Neuberg. Count Lichnowsky seems to have suggested the name of Maria Louisa and offered to write to Count Neuberg, whom he knew, on the subject. It looks also as if the case of the Grand Duke of Tuscany had been exceptional, in that the Mass had been forwarded before the subscription had been received; this at least might be the interpretation of a remark noted by Karl: “I shall go to Odelga on Sunday. We must get to work, or they will keep the Mass and send nothing.” Schindler says that Beethoven sent a carefully written letter to the King of Sweden to accompany the invitation; but nothing came of it. The King of Denmark subscribed, but as we hear nothing of the particulars, it is most likely that everything went smoothly in his case.