s pupil,
Ries: "Beethoven never visited me more frequently than when I lived in
the house of a tailor, with three very handsome but thoroughly
respectable daughters."

At twenty, he fell in love with Babette, daughter of the proprietress of
a coffee-house that he frequented. That Babette's charms impressed
others may be gathered from the fact that she afterward became the
Countess Belderbusch. Three years later, Eleonora von Breuning was the
recipient of his devotion, and he would no doubt have found a good wife
in her if she, too, had not finally married some one else. The next
important figure on the list was the Countess Babette de Keglevics,
afterward Princess Odeschalchi, to whom Beethoven showed his feelings in
the shape of the Sonata, Opus 7. The Baroness Ertmann he addressed as
"Liebe, werthe, Dorothea Cecilia," while the Countess Erdoedy received
the still warmer greeting of "Liebe, liebe, liebe, liebe Graefin." All of
these women, and many others, were ready to stand almost any liberty
from Beethoven, and they entertained the warmest affection for him. At a
later date, the Countess Erdoedy erected a temple in her park to the
memory of Beethoven. That his affections were changeable, if intense,
was admitted by the composer himself. On being teased about his conquest
of a beautiful woman, he admitted that she had interested him longer
than any of the others,--namely, seven whole months.

More serious was his feeling for the lovely young Countess Giulietta
Giucciardi, one of his pupils. "Life has been made a little brighter to
me lately," he writes, adding later, "This change has been brought about
by a dear, fascinating girl, whom I love, and who loves me. After two
years, I bask again in the sunlight of happiness, and now, for the first
time, I feel what a truly happy state marriage might be." But,
unfortunately, she was not of his rank in life, and later on we find
her, too, marrying another. Beethoven would certainly have married her
if he could have done so, and his epistles to her are full of many
fervid expressions of love. At his death, some letters of the most
passionate description were found in his desk, and for a time it was
thought they were addressed to her, but they are now ascribed to the
influence of her successor.

The Countess Therese von Brunswick, who next received Beethoven's
devotion, had been one of his pupils, and had once been rapped over the
knuckles by him for inefficiency. Twelve y