After a stay of less than six weeks Chopin removed from the Rue Chaillot to the apartments in No. 12, Place Vendome, which M. Albrecht and Dr. O'Meara had succeeded in finding for him. About this time Moscheles came to Paris. Of course he did not fail to inquire after his brother-artist and call at his house. What Moscheles heard and thought may be gathered from the following entry in his diary:-"Unfortunately, we heard of Chopin's critical condition, made ourselves inquiries, and found all the sad news confirmed. Since he has been laid up thus, his sister has been with him. Now the days of the poor fellow are numbered, his sufferings great. Sad lot!" Yes, Chopin's condition had become so hopeless that his relations had been communicated with, and his sister, Louisa Jedrzejewicz, [FOOTNOTE: The same sister who visited him in 1844, passed on that occasion also some time at Nohant, and subsequently is mentioned in a letter of Chopin's to Franchomme.] accompanied by her husband and daughter, had lost no time in coming from Poland to Paris. For the comfort of her presence he was, no doubt, thankful. But he missed and deplored very much during his last illness the absence of his old, trusted physician, Dr. Molin, who had died shortly after the composer's return from England.
The accounts of Chopin's last days—even if we confine ourselves to those given by eye-witnesses—are a mesh of contradictions which it is impossible to wholly disentangle. I shall do my best, but perhaps the most I can hope for is to avoid making confusion worse confounded.
In the first days of October Chopin was already in such a condition that unsupported he could not sit upright. His sister and Gutmann did not leave him for a minute, Chopin holding a hand of the latter almost constantly in one of his. By the 15th of October the voice of the patient had lost its sonority. It was on this day that took place the episode which has so often and variously been described. The Countess Delphine Potocka, between whom and Chopin existed a warm friendship, and who then happened to be at Nice, was no sooner informed of her friend's fatal illness than she hastened to Paris.
When the coming of this dear friend was announced to Chopin
[relates M. Gavard], he exclaimed: "Therefore, then, has God
delayed so long to call me to Him; He wished to vouchsafe me
yet the pleasure of seeing you." Scarcely had she stepped up
to him when he expressed the wish that she should let him hear
once more the voice which he loved so much. When the priest
who prayed beside the bed had granted the request of the dying
man, the piano was moved from the adjoining room, and the
unhappy Countess, mastering her sorrow and suppressing tier
sobs, had to force herself to sing beside the bed where her
friend was exhaling his life. I, for my part, heard nothing; I
do not know what she sang. This scene, this contrast, this
excess of grief had over-powered my-sensibility; I remember
only the moment when the death-rattle of the departing one
interrupted the Countess in the middle of the second piece.
The instrument was quickly removed, and beside the bed
remained only the priest who said the prayers for the dying,
and the kneeling friends around him.
However, the end was not yet come, indeed, was not to come till two days after. M. Gavard, in saying that he did not hear what the Countess Potocka sang, acts wisely, for those who pretended to have heard it contradict each other outright. Liszt and Karasowski, who follows him, say that the Countess sang the Hymn to the Virgin by Stradella, and a Psalm by Marcello; on the other hand, Gutmann most positively asserted that she sang a Psalm by Marcello and an air by Pergolesi; whereas Franchomme insisted on her having sung an air from Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda, and that only once, and nothing else. As Liszt was not himself present, and does not give the authority for his statement, we may set it, and with it Karasowski's, aside; but the two other statements, made as they were by two musicians who were ear witnesses, leave us in distressing perplexity with regard to what really took place, for between them we cannot choose. Chopin, says M. Gavard, looked forward to his death with serenity.
Some days after his removal to the Place Vendome, Chopin,
sitting upright and leaning on the arm of a friend, remained
silent for a long time and seemed lost in deep meditation.
Suddenly he broke the silence with the words: "Now my death-
struggle begins" [Maintenant j'entre en agonie]. The
physician, who was feeling his pulse, wished to comfort him
with some commonplace words of hope. But Chopin rejoined with
a superiority which admitted of no reply: "God shows man a
rare favour when He reveals to him the moment of the approach
of death; this grace He shows me. Do not disturb me."
M. Gavard relates also that on the 16th October Chopin twice called his friends that were gathered in his apartments around him. "For everyone he had a touching word; I, for my part, shall never forget the tender words he spoke to me." Calling to his side the Princess Czartoryska and Mdlle. Gavard, [FOOTNOTE: A sister of M. Charles Gavard, the pupil to whom Chopin dedicated his Berceuse.] he said to them: "You will play together, you will think of me, and I shall listen to you." And calling to his side Franchomme, he said to the Princess: "I recommend Franchomme to you, you will play Mozart together, and I shall listen to you." [FOOTNOTE: The words are usually reported to have been "Vous jouerez du Mozart en memoire de moi.">[ "And," added Franchomme when he told me this, "the Princess has always been a good friend to me."
And George Sand? Chopin, as I have already mentioned, said two days before his death to Franchomme: "She had said to me that I would die in no arms but hers" [Elle n'avait dit que je ne mourrais que dans ses bras]. Well, did she not come and fulfil her promise, or, at least, take leave of her friend of many years? Here, again, all is contradiction. M. Gavard writes:—
Among the persons who called and were not admitted was a
certain Madame M., who came in the name of George Sand—who
was then much occupied with the impending representation of
one of her dramas—to inquire after Chopin's state of health.
None of us thought it proper to disturb the last moments of
the master by the announcement of this somewhat late
remembrance.
Gutmann, on the other hand, related that George Sand came to the landing of the staircase and asked him if she might see Chopin; but that he advised her strongly against it, as it was likely to excite the patient too much. Gutmann, however, seems to have been by no means sure about this part of his recollections, for on two occasions he told me that it was Madame Clesinger (George Sand's daughter, Solange) who asked if it was advisable for her mother to come. Madame Clesinger, I may say in passing, was one of those in loving attendance on Chopin, and, as Franchomme told me, present, like himself, when the pianist-composer breathed his last. From the above we gather, at least, that it is very uncertain whether Chopin's desire to see George Sand was frustrated by her heartlessness or the well-meaning interference of his friends.