I found Doctor Haydn with his Bible in his hand and, while Fraulein Kremnitzer went to fetch bread and milk, I asked him to talk to me about his Bible once again, with the aim of diverting his thoughts from his fears of the French. The book is something of a treasure of his, as it is the one he used when debating the libretto of The Creation with Baron van Swieten. As I understand it, based principally on Doctor Haydn’s tellings of it, the idea for the oratorio was conceived in England on his second stay there, when he was offered a long poem as a draft libretto. The subject of the poem was the Creation, one of great interest to him through his friendship with William and Caroline Herschel, the astronomers who had given accounts of the likely tumult at the start of the universe.

Doctor Haydn passed the text to Baron van Swieten for further work but, when it was returned to him, the poem was nowhere to be seen and, in its place, were verses from Genesis and Psalms, and some of Milton’s Paradise Lost. As a debt was owed to the English for the origin of the piece, Baron van Swieten had used the English Bible of King James as his source, then set about translating the sentences directly into German. Doctor Haydn located the relevant passages in his own German Bible, so that a measure of authenticity might be made. He marked the pages with notes and, for a time, his Bible travelled between this house and Baron van Swieten’s as the two settled on the libretto. His Bible, Doctor Haydn says, is older than Martin Luther.

It was a pleasure to hear him recount once again this innocent adventure; for several minutes, it was as if every French soldier was back in France and Vienna unmolested. It lifted both our moods and he found an appetite and ate some bread. He then declared himself fit for work, and we happily spent the best part of an hour reviewing his Missa brevis, trying one thing and another. It is not a new piece at all, not as it is presently known, but Doctor Haydn, on rediscovering it, found a new attraction to its melody and felt it had prospects he had not realised in his youth.

If none of us survives the French, he must be remembered as someone whom the music never left, not until the last. Infirmity encroaches by the day and, in my time here, he has not stepped beyond his house and garden. That is not to say he is without worldly contact; he has kept entertaining visitors of the highest rank, because he is Haydn, and both the music and the man are much loved and admired.