Note 23 — HIS LIFE
B. Constance (Bertha Constance) Hull translation
Beethoven's house was situated near those fortifications of Vienna which Napoleon had blown up after the taking of the city. "What an awful life, with ruins all around me," wrote Beethoven to the publishers, Breitkopf & Härtel, on 26th June, 1809, "nothing but drums, trumpets, and misery of every kind." A portrait of Beethoven at this time has been left to us by a Frenchman who saw him in Vienna in 1809, Baron Trémont, of the Council of State. It gives a picturesque description of the disorder in Beethoven's room. They talked together of philosophy, religion, politics, and "especially of Shakespeare." Beethoven was very much inclined to follow Trémont to Paris, where he knew they had already performed his Symphonies at the Conservatoire, and there he had many enthusiastic admirers. (See Mercure Musical, 1 May, 1906, Une visite à Beethoven, by Baron Trémont, published by J. Chantavoine).