The ceremony, which took place on Tuesday (the 30th ult.), at
noon, in the church of the Madeleine, was one of the most
imposing we ever remember to have witnessed. The great door of
the church was hung with black curtains, with the initials of
the deceased, "F. C.," emblazoned in silver. On our entry we
found the vast area of the modern Parthenon entirely crowded.
Nave, aisles, galleries, &c., were alive with human beings who
had come to see the last of Frederick Chopin. Many, perhaps,
had never heard of him before....In the space that separates
the nave from the choir, a lofty mausoleum had been erected,
hung with black and silver drapery, with the initials "F.C."
emblazoned on the pall. At noon the service began. The
orchestra and chorus (both from the Conservatoire, with M.
Girard as conductor and the principal singers (Madame Viardot-
Garcia, Madame Castellan, Signor Lablache, and M. Alexis
Dupont)) were placed at the extreme end of the church, a black
drapery concealing them from view.
[FOOTNOTE: This statement is confirmed by one in the Gazette
musicals, where we read that the members of the Societe des
Concerts "have made themselves the testamentary executors of
this wish"—namely, to have Mozart's Requiem performed. Madame
Audley, misled, I think, by a dubious phrase of Karasowski's,
that has its origin in a by no means dubious phrase of
Liszt's, says that Meyerbeer conducted (dirigeait l'ensemble).
Liszt speaks of the conducting of the funeral procession.]
When the service commenced the drapery was partially withdrawn
and exposed the male executants to view, concealing the women,
whose presence, being uncanonical, was being felt, not seen. A
solemn march was then struck up by the band, during the
performance of which the coffin containing the body of the
deceased was slowly carried up the middle of the nave...As
soon as the coffin was placed in the mausoleum, Mozart's
Requiem was begun...The march that accompanied the body to the
mausoleum was Chopin's own composition from his first
pianoforte sonata, instrumented for the orchestra by M. Henri
Reber.
[FOOTNOTE: Op. 35, the first of those then published, but in
reality his second, Op. 4 being the first. Meyerbeer
afterwards expressed to M. Charles Gavard his surprise that he
had not been asked to do the deceased the homage of scoring
the march.]
During the ceremony M. Lefebure-Wely, organist of the
Madeleine, performed two of Chopin's preludes [FOOTNOTE: Nos.
4 and 6, in E and B minor] upon the organ...After the service
M. Wely played a voluntary, introducing themes from Chopin's
compositions, while the crowd dispersed with decorous gravity.
The coffin was then carried from the church, all along the
Boulevards, to the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise-a distance of
three miles at least—Meyerbeer and the other chief mourners,
who held the cords, walking on foot, bareheaded.
[FOOTNOTE: Liszt writes that Meyerbeer and Prince Adam
Czartoryski conducted the funeral procession, and that Prince
Alexander Czartoryski, Delacroix, Franchomme, and Gutmann were
the pall-bearers. Karasowski mentions the same gentlemen as
pall-bearers; Madame Audley, on the other hand, names
Meyerbeer instead of Gutmann. Lastly, Theophile Gautier
reported in the Feuilleton de la Presse of November 5, 1849,
that MM. Meyerbeer, Eugene Delacroix, Franchomme, and Pleyel
held the cords of the pall. The Gazette musicale mentions
Franchomme, Delacroix, Meyerbeer, and Czartoryski.]
A vast number of carriages followed...
[FOOTNOTE: "Un grand nombre de voitures de deuil et de
voitures particulieres," we read in the Gazette musicals, "ont
suivi jusqu'au cimetiere de l'Est, dit du Pere-Lachaise, le
pompeux corbillard qui portait le corps du defunt. L'elite des
artistes de Paris lui a servi de cortege. Plusieurs dames, ses
eleves, en grand deuil, ont suivi le convoi, a pied, jusqu'au
champ de repos, ou l'artiste eminent, convaincu, a eu pour
oraisons funebres des regrets muets, profondement sentis, qui
valent mieux que des discours dans lesquels perce toujours une
vanite d'auteur ou d'orateur">[
At Pere-Lachaise, in one of the most secluded spots, near the
tombs of Habeneck and Marie Milanollo, the coffin was
deposited in a newly-made grave. The friends and admirers took
a last look, ladies in deep mourning threw garlands and
flowers upon the coffin, and then the gravedigger resumed his
work...The ceremony was performed in silence.
One affecting circumstance escaped the attention of our otherwise so acute observer—namely, the sprinkling on the coffin, when the latter had been lowered into the grave, of the Polish earth which, enclosed in a finely-wrought silver cup, loving friends had nearly nineteen years before, in the village of Wola, near Warsaw, given to the departing young and hopeful musician who was never to see his country again.
Chopin's surroundings at Pere-Lachaise are most congenial. Indeed, the neighbourhood forms quite a galaxy of musical talent—close by lie Cherubini, Bellini, Gretry, Boieldieu, Bocquillon-Wilhem, Louis Duport, and several of the Erard family; farther away, Ignace Pleyel, Rodolphe Kreutzer, Pierre Galin, Auguste Panseron, Mehul, and Paer. Some of these, however, had not yet at that time taken possession of their resting-places there, and Bellini has since then (September 15, 1876) been removed by his compatriots, to his birthplace, Catania, in Sicily.
Not the whole of Chopin's body, however, was buried at Pere-Lachaise; his heart was conveyed to his native country and is preserved in the Holy Cross Church at Warsaw, where at the end of 1879 or beginning of 1880 a monument was erected, consisting of a marble bust of the composer in a marble niche. Soon after Chopin's death voluntary contributions were collected, and a committee under Delacroix's presidence was formed, for the erection of a monument, the execution of which was entrusted to Clesinger, the husband of Madame Sand's daughter, Solange. Although the sculptor's general idea is good—a pedestal bearing on its front a medallion, and surmounted by a mourning muse with a neglected lyre in her hand—the realisation leaves much to be desired. This monument was unveiled in October, 1850, on the anniversary of Chopin's death.
[FOOTNOTE: On the pedestal of the monument are to be read besides the words "A. Frederic Chopin" above the medallion, "Ses amis" under the medallion, and the name of the sculptor and the year of its production (J. Clesinger, 1850), the following incorrect biographical data: "Frederic Chopin, ne en Pologne a Zelazowa Wola pres de Varsovie: Fils d'un emigre francais, marie a Mile. Krzyzanowska, fille d'un gentilhomme Polonais.">[
The friends of the composer, as we learn from an account in John Bull (October 26, 1850), assembled in the little chapel of Pere-Lachaise, and after a religious service proceeded with the officiating priest at their head to Chopin's grave. The monument was then unveiled, flowers and garlands were scattered over and around it, prayers were said, and M. Wolowski, the deputy, [FOOTNOTE: Louis Francois Michel Raymond Wolowski, political economist, member of the Academie des Sciences Morales, and member of the Constituante. A Pole by birth, he became a naturalised French subject in 1834.] endeavoured to make a speech, but was so much moved that he could only say a few words.
[FOOTNOTE: In the Gazette muticale of October 20, 1850, we read: "Une messe commemorative a ete dite jeudi dernier [i.e., on the 17th] dans la chapelle du cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise a la memoire de Frederic Chopin et pour l'inauguration de son monument funebre.">[
The Menestrel of November 3, 1850, informed its readers that in the course of the week (it was on the 30th October at eleven o'clock) an anniversary mass had been celebrated at the Madeleine in honour of Chopin, at which from two to three hundred of his friends were present, and that Franchomme on the violoncello and Lefebure-Wely on the organ had played some of the departed master's preludes, or, to quote our authority literally, "ont redit aux assistants emus les preludes si pleins de melancolie de I'illustre defunt."