Beethoven, it should be remembered, wrote the Bonaparte Symphony in homage to great defender of the French Revolution. He was about to perform the piece, so the story goes, when he was informed that Napoleon intended to have himself crowned emperor. Beethoven was so enraged that he began to cross out Napoleon's name from the score so fiercely that he destroyed the paper on which it was written. He continued to slash at it until it was reduced to shreds.[The piece is now known as the Heroic Symphony.]
So it is not altogether inappropriate that the lyricist chose Beethoven's music to adapt for this purpose.
