80--1779), court organist at Brussels, and famous in his day,--which
was a long day. When he was at the age of eighty and the father of
twelve children, he had to stoop to appeals for charity; again at
ninety-seven he appeals. At ninety-eight he pleads to be retired with a
pension; at ninety-nine he dies. Three days after his death his son is
asking a pension for the mother of that dozen children. She also writes
a pitiful letter still preserved.

"My husband, Judocus Boutmy, had the happiness of serving, for
thirty-five years, as first organist of the chapel of Your Highness.
Infirmities, the result of old age, and twelve children raised at great
cost, to enable them to earn their bread, have left me at his death in
indigence the greater since my son Laurent Boutmy, who for many years
gave with approbation assistance to his father, in the hope of
succeeding to his post, has been deprived of this boon by others.

"The hope of finding subsistence in the heritage of my ancestors made me
go back to Germany, where unhappily the death of my brothers, my
absence, the disorder of war, of law, and a faithless administration,
have prevented, at least during my lifetime, all that I could hope. Save
for the tenderness of a daughter, who is herself hardly in easy
circumstances, having a family, I should lack the necessaries of life.
The infirmities, resulting on an age of seventy, passed in adversity and
work, prevent me from gaining my own living."

Van der Straeten says that her name was Katrina, that she came from
Westphalia. Save a few titles of his works and a few accounts of this
pathetic struggle, this is all we know of poor Josse Boutmy and his old
wife. Then there is Jacques Buus, who makes various appeals for aid for
his increasing family. A refreshing novelty in these annals of sordid
poverty is given us of H.J. De Croes, court-organist at Brussels in the
eighteenth century, who was forced to make an appeal for charity
because the son whom he had sent abroad to study did not return to
support his father, but decided to marry a woman he met at Ratisbon; it
is pleasant to add that the appeal was granted.

Adrian Couwenhoven, who died in Spain in 1592, left there a widow, Ana
Wickerslot, who implored the king to grant her money to go back home to
Flanders with her children.

The Brebos family were famous organ-builders in the fifteenth century;
they were famous marriers, too,--but one of them met his match, Jean,
calle