39 A PROSPECT OF BONN IN BEETHOVEN'S DAY it, "all Bonn was fed from the Elector's kitchen." The old city walls-(the "gar gute Fortification, dass der Churfürst sicher genug darinnen Hof halten kann" of Johann Hübner's description) were already partially destroyed. Within them the whole population seems to have lived. Outside the city gates it does not appear that, save by a chapel or two, the eye was impeded in its sweep across gardens and open fields to the surrounding villages which, then as now hidden in clusters of walnut and fruit trees, appeared, when looked upon from the neighboring hills, like islands rising upon the level surface of the plain. The great increase of wealth and population during the last 150 years in all this part of the Rhine valley under the influence of the wise national economy of the Prussian government, has produced corresponding changes in and about the towns and villages; but the grand features of the landscape are unchanged; the ruins upon the Drachenfels and Godesberg looked down, as now, upon the distant roofs and spires of Bonn; the castle of Siegburg rose above the plains away to the East; the chapel crowned the Petersberg, the church with the marble stairs the nearer Kreuzberg. The fine landing place with its growing trees and seats for idlers, the villas, hotels, coffee-houses and dwellings outside the old walls, are all recent; but the huge ferryboat, the "flying bridge," even then was ever swinging like a pendulum from shore to shore. Steam as a locomotive power was unknown, and the commerce of the Rhine floated by the town, gliding down with the current on rafts or in clumsy but rather picturesque boats, or impelled against the stream by the winds, by horses and even by men and women. The amount of traffic was not, however, too great to be amply provided for in this manner; for population was kept down by war, by the hard and rude life of the peasant class, and by the influences of all the false national-economic principles of that age, which restrained commerce by every device that could be made to yield present profit to the rulers of the Rhine lands. Passengers had, for generations, no longer been plundered by mail-clad robbers dwelling upon a hundred picturesque heights; but each petty state had gained from the Emperor's weakness "vested rights" in all sorts of custom-levies and taxes. Risbeck (1780) found nine toll-stations between Mayence and Coblenz; and thence to the boundary of Holland, he declares there were at least sixteen, and that in the average each must have collected 30,000 Rhenish florins per annum. To the stranger, coming down from Mayence, with its narrow dark lanes, or up from Cologne, whose confined and pestiferously dirty streets, emitting unnamed stenches, were but typical of the bigotry, superstition and moral filth of the population—all now happily changed, thanks to a long period of French and Prussian rule-little Bonn seemed a very picture of neatness and comfort. Even its ecclesiastical life seemed of another order. The men of high rank in the church were of high rank also by birth; they were men of the world and gentlemen; their manners were polished and their minds enlarged by intercourse with the world and with gentlemen; they were tolerant in their opinions and liberal in their views. Ecclesiastics of high and low degree were met at every corner as in other cities of the Rhine region; but absence of military men was a remarkable feature. Johann Hübner gives the reason for this in few and quaint words: -"In times of war much depends upon who is master of Bonn, because traffic on the Rhine can be blockaded at this pass. Therefore the place has its excellent fortification which enables the Elector to hold his court in ample security within its walls. But he need not maintain a garrison there in time of peace, and in time of war troops are garrisoned who have taken the oath to the Emperor and the empire. This was settled by the peace of Ryswick as well as Rastatt." While the improvement in the appearance of the streets of Bonn has necessarily been great, through the refitting or rebuilding of a large portion of the dwelling-houses, the plan of the town, except in those parts lying near the wall, has undergone no essential change, the principal one being the open spaces, where in 1770 churches stood. On the small triangular Römer-Platz was the principal parish church of Bonn, that of St. Remigius, standing in such a position that its tall tower looked directly down the Acherstrasse. In 1800 this tower was set on fire by lightning and destroyed; six years later the church itself was demolished by the French and its stones removed to become a part of the fortifications at Wesel. On the small, round grass plot as one goes from the Münster church toward the neighboring city gate (Neuthor) stood another parish church-a rotunda in form-that of St. Martin, which fell in 1812 and was removed; and at the opposite end of the minster, separated from it only by a narrow passage, was still a third, the small structure dedicated to St. Gangolph. This, too, was pulled down in 1806. Only the fourth parish church, that of St. Peter in Dietkirchen, is still in existence and was, at a later date, considerably enlarged. After the demolition of these buildings a new division of the town into parishes was made (1806). HOLIDAY TIMES IN THE LITTLE CITY 41 The city front of the electoral palace, now the university, was more imposing than now, and was adorned by a tall, handsome tower containing a carillon, with bells numerous enough to play, for instance, the overture to Monsigny's "Deserter." This part of the palace, with the tower and chapel, was destroyed by fire in 1777. The town hall, erected by Clemens August, and the other churches were as now, but the large edifice facing the university library and museum of casts, now occupied by private dwellings and shops, was then the cloister and church of the Franciscan monks. A convent of Capuchin nuns stood upon the Kesselgasse; its garden is now a bleaching ground. Let the fancy picture, upon a fine Easter or Pentecost morning in those years, the little city in its holiday attire and bustle. The bells in palace and church tower ringing; the peasants in coarse but picturesque garments, the women abounding in bright colors, come in from the surrounding villages, fill the market-place and crowd the churches at the early masses. The nobles and gentry -in broad-flapped coats, wide waistcoats and knee-breeches, the entire dress often of brilliant colored silks, satins and velvets, huge, white, flowing neckcloths, ruffles over the hands, buckles of silver or even of gold at the knees and upon the shoes, huge wigs becurled and bepowdered on the heads, and surmounted by the cocked hat, when not held under the arm, a sword at the side, and commonly a gold-headed cane in the hand (and if the morning be cold, a scarlet cloak thrown over the shoulders)—are daintily picking their way to the palace to kiss His Transparency's hand or dashing up to the gates in heavy carriages with white wigged and cocked-hatted coachmen and footmen. Their ladies wear long and narrow bodices, but their robes flow with a mighty sweep; their apparent stature is increased by very high-heeled shoes and by piling up their hair on lofty cushions; their sleeves are short, but long silk gloves cover the arms. The ecclesiastics, various in name and costume, dress as now, save in the matter of the flowing wig. The Elector's company of guards is out and at intervals the thunder of the artillery on the walls is heard. On all sides, strong and brilliant contrasts of color meet the eye, velvet and silk, purple and fine linen, gold and silver-such were the fashions of the time-costly, inconvenient in form, but imposing, magnificent and marking the differences of rank and class. Let the imagination picture all this, and it will have a scene familiar to the boy Beethoven, and one in which as he grew up to manhood he had his own small part to play. Chapter II The Ancestral van Beethoven Family in Belgium-Removal of the Grandfather to Bonn-His Activities as Singer and Chapelmaster-Birth and Education of Johann van Beethoven-The Parents of the Composer. A T the beginning of the seventeenth century a family named van Beethoven lived in a village of Belgium near Louvain. A member of it removed to and settled in Antwerp about 1650. A son of this Beethoven, named William, a wine dealer, married, September 11, 1680, Catherine Grandjean and had issue, eight children. One of them, baptized September 8, 1683, in the parish of Notre Dame, now received the name Henry Adelard, his sponsors being Henry van Beethoven, acting for Adelard de Redincq, Baron de Rocquigny, and Jacqueline Grandjean. This Henry Adelard Beethoven, having arrived at man's estate, took to wife Maria Catherine de Herdt, who bore him twelve children—the third named Louis, the twelfth named Louis Joseph. The latter, baptized December 9, 1728, married, November 3, 1773, Maria Theresa Schuerweghs, and died November 11, 1808, at Oosterwyck. The second daughter, named like her mother Maria Theresa, married, September 6, 1808, Joseph Michael Jacobs and became the mother of Jacob Jacobs, in the middle of the nineteenth century a professor of painting in Antwerp, who supplied in part the materials for these notices of the Antwerp Beethovens, although the principal credit is due to M. Léon de Burbure of that city.1 The certificate of baptism of Louis van Beethoven, third son of Henry Adelard, is to this effect: Hert. Antwerp, December 23, 1712-Baptizatus, Ludovicus. 'In Fétis' "Biographie universelle" (new ed.) several of these names are misprinted. They are corrected here from Mr. Jacobs' letter to A. W. T. THE COMPOSER'S BELGIAN ANCESTRY 43 Sponsors: Petrus Bellmaert and Dymphona van Beethoven. It is a family tradition-Prof. Jacobs heard it from his mother -that this Louis van Beethoven, owing to some domestic difficulties (according to M. Burbure they were financial), secretly left his father's house at an early age and never saw it again, although in later years an epistolary correspondence seems to have been established between the fugitive and his parents. Gifted with a good voice and well educated musically, he went to Louvain and applied for a vacant position as tenor to the chapter ad Sanctum Petrum, receiving it on November 2, 1731.1 A few days later the young man of 18 years was appointed substitute for three months for the singing master (Phonascus), who had fallen ill, as is attested by the minutes of the Chapter, under date November 2, 1731.2 The young singer does not seem to have filled the place beyond the prescribed time. By a decree of Elector Clemens August, dated March, 1733 (the month of Joseph Haydn's birth), he became Court Musician in Bonn with a salary of 400 florins, a large one for those days, particularly in the case of a young man who only three months before had completed his 20th year. Allowing the usual year of probation to which candidates for the court chapel were subjected, Beethoven must have come to Bonn in 1732. This corresponds to the time spent at Louvain as well as to a petition of 1774, to be given hereafter, in which Johann speaks of his father's "42 years of service." There is another paper of date 1784 which makes the elder Beethoven to have served about 46 years, but this is from another hand and of less authority than that written by the son. What it was that persuaded Ludwig van Beethoven to go to Bonn is unknown. Gottfried Fischer, who owned the house in the Rheingasse in which two generations of Beethovens lived, professed to know that Elector Clemens August learned to know him as a good singer at Liège and for that reason called him to 'Thayer's account of this period in the life of Beethoven's grandfather has here been extended from an article by the Chevalier L. de Burbure, published in the "Biographie nationale publiée par l'Académie Royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux arts de Belgique." Tome II, p. 105. (Brussels, 1868.) From this it further appears that two other members of the Antwerp branch of the family were devoted to the fine arts, viz.: Peter van Beethoven, painter, pupil of Abr. Genoel, jr., and Gerhard van Beethoven, sculptor, accepted in the guild of St. Luke about 1713. Director Vollmer, of Brussels, in a communication to Dr. Deiters gave information of a branch of the family in Mechlin and of still another in Brabant where, in the village of Wambeke, there was a curé van Beethoven who must either have died or been transferred between 1729 and 1732. "The original entry is printed in full in the German edition of this biography. |