href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@43593@[email protected]#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[8] From this it appears that Madame van Beethoven had addressed another communication to the Magistrates’ Court, in which she apparently said or intimated that Beethoven would, in consequence of the elevation of the Archduke to the Archbishopric, be obliged to spend the greater part of his time in Olmütz, and had renewed her attacks upon his moral character. “His Imperial Highness, Eminence and Cardinal” would unhesitatingly bear witness to his morality, and, as to the twaddle about Olmütz, the Archduke would probably spend not more than six weeks of the year there.

In a postscript he accuses the mother of wishing to gain possession of her son in order to enjoy all of her pension. In view of this he had taken counsel as to whether or not he should let her keep the money and make it good from his own pocket. He had been advised not to do so, however, because she would make bad use of the money. “I have decided, therefore, to set aside the sum in time. You see again how foolishly the Magistracy is acting in trying to tear my son wholly from me, since when she dies the boy will lose this share of the pension and would get along very poorly without my aid.” A few days later Beethoven wrote to Dr. Bach again, this time to suggest that legal steps be taken to attach the widow’s pension, he having a suspicion that she was trying to evade payment of her son’s share because she had permitted nine months to pass without drawing the pension from the exchequer.

The Magistracy disposed of Beethoven’s protest and application on November 4, by curtly referring him to the disposition made of his petition of September 17. Beethoven asked for a reconsideration of the matter, but without avail, and the only recourse remaining to him was the appeal to the higher court which had already been suggested to Dr. Bach. The story of that appeal belongs to the year 1820. Meanwhile the association of Councillor Peters with him in the guardianship had been broached and was the subject of discussion with his friends. In December Bernard writes in a Conversation Book:

Bach seems to have advised that the mother be accepted as co-guardian. He writes: “As co-guardian she will have no authority, only the honor of being associated in the guardianship. She will be a mere figurehead.” Whether the conversations noted at the time referred to the case on appeal or to the application still pending before the Magistracy, or some to the one, some to the other, it is impossible to determine. The record of the refusal of the Magistracy has not been procured, but the decree of the Appellate Court gives December 20 as its date.

Frequent citations from the so-called “Conversation Books” made in the course of the narrative touching the later phases of the controversy over the guardianship call for some remarks upon this new source of information opened in this year. In the “Niederrheinische Musikzeitung,” No. 28 of 1854, Schindler wrote:

That he was able, partly by the ear and partly by the eye, to judge of the correctness of the performance of his music, Schindler states in the same article—a fact also known from many other sources; this was the case even to his last year. When, after the death of Beethoven, such of his manuscripts and papers as were thought to be salable were set apart, there remained in the hands of von Breuning a lot of letters, documents and Conversation Books. The estimated value in the inventory of the manuscripts and the price obtained for them at the auction sale, indicate how utterly worthless from a pecuniary point of view that other collection was thought to be; as, however, they might be of use to some future biographer, it was well to have them preserved, and doubtless a small gratification to Schindler for his great sacrifices and very valuable services to Beethoven in these last months, the only one which he as guardian to the absent nephew could make; so Breuning gave them to him. The Conversation Books, counting in as such those which were really nothing but a sheet or two of paper loosely folded, were only about 400 in number, or less than fifty per annum for the last eight and a half years of Beethoven’s life—that being the period which they cover. Schindler, who spoke on this as on so many other topics frankly and without reserve, said that he long preserved the books and papers intact, but not finding any person but himself who placed any value upon them, their weight and bulk had led him in the course of his long unsettled life by degrees to destroy those which he deemed to be of little or no importance. The remainder were, in 1845, transferred to the Royal Library in Berlin, and, in 1855, when they were examined