But with Waldstein, the case was otherwise. The young count, eight years older than Beethoven, coming direct from Vienna, where his family connections gave him access to the salons of the very highest rank of the nobility, was thoroughly acquainted with the noblest and best that the imperial capital could show in the art of music. Himself more than an ordinary dilettante, he could judge of the youth’s powers and became his friend. We have seen that he used occasionally to go to the modest room in the Wenzelgasse, that he even employed Beethoven to compose his “Ritterballet” music, and we shall see, that he foretold the future eminence of the composer and that the name, Beethoven, would stand next those of Mozart and Haydn on the roll of fame. Waldstein’s name, too, is in Beethoven’s roll of fame; it stands in the list of those to whom important works are dedicated. The dedication of the twenty-four variations on “Venni Amore” to the Countess Hatzfeld indicates, if it does not prove, that Beethoven’s deserts were neither unknown nor unacknowledged at her house.
At that time the favorite places of resort for the professors of the new university and for young men whose education and position at court or in society were such as to make them welcome guests, was the house on the Market-place now known as the Zehrgarten; and there, says Frau Karth, Beethoven was in the habit of going. A large portion of this house was let in lodgings, and it is said that Eugène Beauharnais, with his wife and children, at one time occupied the first floor. Its mistress was the Widow Koch who spread also a table for a select company of boarders. Her name, too, often appears in the “Intelligenzblatt” of Bonn in advertisements of books and music. Of her three children, a son and two daughters, the beautiful Barbara--the Babette Koch mentioned in a letter of Beethoven’s--was the belle of Bonn. Wegeler’s eulogy of her (“Notizen,” p. 58) contains the names of several members of that circle whom, doubtless, the young composer so often met at the house.
She was a confidential friend of Eleonore von Breuning, a lady who of all the representatives of the female sex that I met in a rather active and long life came nearest the ideal of a perfect woman--an opinion which is confirmed by all who had the good fortune to know her well. She was surrounded not only by young artists like Beethoven, the two Rombergs, Reicha, the twin brothers Kügelchen and others, but also by the intellectual men of all classes and ages, such as D. Crevelt, Prof. Velten, who died early, Fischenich, who afterward became Municipal Councillor, Prof. Thaddäus Dereser, afterward capitular of the cathedral, Wrede, who became a bishop, Heckel and Floret, secretaries of the Elector, Malchus, private secretary of the Austrian minister von Keverberg, later Government Councillor of Holland, Court Councillor von Bourscheidt, Christian von Breuning and many others.