[FOOTNOTE: In B. Stavenow's sketch already more than once alluded to by me, we read that Chopin, after having wetted his lips with the water brought him by Gutmann, raised the latter's hand, kissed it, and with the words "Cher ami!" breathed his last in the arms of his pupil, whose sorrow was so great that Count Gryzmala was obliged to lead him out of the room. Liszt's account is slightly different. "Who is near me?" asked Chopin, with a scarcely audible voice. He bent his head to kiss the hand of Gutmann who supported him, giving up his soul in this last proof of friendship and gratitude. He died as he had lived, loving.]

M. Gavard describes the closing hours of Chopin's life as follows:—

The whole evening of the 16th passed in litanies; we gave the responses, but Chopin remained silent. Only from his difficult breathing could one perceive that he was still alive. That evening two doctors examined him. One of them, Dr. Cruveille, took a candle, and, holding it before Chopin's face, which had become quite black from suffocation, remarked to us that the senses had already ceased to act. But when he asked Chopin whether he suffered, we heard, still quite distinctly, the answer "No longer" [Plus]. This was the last word I heard from his lips. He died painlessly between three and four in the morning [of October 17, 1849]. When I saw him some hours afterwards, the calm of death had given again to his countenance the grand character which we find in the mould taken the same day [by Clesinger], and still more in the simple pencil sketch which was drawn by the hand of a friend, M. Kwiatkowski. This picture of Chopin is the one I like best.

Liszt, too, reports that Chopin's face resumed an unwonted youth, purity, and calm; that his youthful beauty so long eclipsed by suffering reappeared. Common as the phenomenon is, there can be nothing more significant, more impressive, more awful, than this throwing-off in death of the marks of care, hardship, vice, and disease—the corruption of earthly life; than this return to the innocence, serenity, and loveliness of a first and better nature; than this foreshadowing of a higher and more perfect existence. Chopin's love of flowers was not forgotten by those who had cherished and admired him now when his soul and body were parted. "The bed on which he lay," relates Liszt, "the whole room, disappeared under their varied colours; he seemed to repose in a garden." It was a Polish custom, which is not quite obsolete even now, for the dying to choose for themselves the garments in which they wished to be dressed before being laid in the coffin (indeed, some people had their last habiliments prepared long before the approach of their end); and the pious, more especially of the female sex, affected conventual vestments, men generally preferring their official attire. That Chopin chose for his grave- clothes his dress-suit, his official attire, in which he presented himself to his audiences in concert-hall and salon, cannot but be regarded as characteristic of the man, and is perhaps more significant than appears at first sight. But I ought to have said, it would be if it were true that Chopin really expressed the wish. M. Kwiatkowski informed me that this was not so.

For some weeks after, from the 18th October onwards, the French press occupied itself a good deal with the deceased musician. There was not, I think, a single Paris paper of note which did not bring one or more long articles or short notes regretting the loss, describing the end, and estimating the man and artist. But the phenomenal ignorance, exuberance of imagination, and audacity of statement, manifested by almost every one of the writers of these articles and notes are sufficient to destroy one's faith in journalism completely and for ever. Among the offenders were men of great celebrity, chief among them Theophile Gautier (Feuilleton de la Presse, November 5, 1849) and Jules Janin (Feuilleton du Journal des Debuts, October 22, 1849), the latter's performance being absolutely appalling. Indeed, if we must adjudge to French journalists the palm for gracefulness and sprightliness, we cannot withhold it from them for unconscientiousness. Some of the inventions of journalism, I suspect, were subsequently accepted as facts, in some cases perhaps even assimilated as items of their experience, by the friends of the deceased, and finally found their way into AUTHENTIC biography. One of these myths is that Chopin expressed the wish that Mozart's Requiem should be performed at his funeral. Berlioz, one of the many journalists who wrote at the time to this effect, adds (Feuilleton du Journal des Debuts, October 27, 1849) that "His [Chopin's] worthy pupil received this wish with his last sigh." Unfortunately for Berlioz and this pretty story, Gutmann told me that Chopin did not express such a wish; and Franchomme made to me the same statement. must, [I must, however, not omit to mention here that M. Charles Gavard says that Chopin drew up the programme of his funeral, and asked that on that occasion Mozart's Requiem should be performed.] Also the story about Chopin's wish to be buried beside Bellini is, according to the latter authority, a baseless invention. This is also the place to dispose of the question: What was done with Chopin's MSS.? The reader may know that the composer is said to have caused all his MSS. to be burnt. Now, this is not true. From Franchomme I learned that what actually took place was this. Pleyel asked Chopin what was to be done with the MSS. Chopin replied that they were to be distributed among his friends, that none were to be published, and that fragments were to be destroyed. Of the pianoforte school which Chopin is said to have had the intention to write, nothing but scraps, if anything, can have been found.

M. Gavard pere made the arrangements for the funeral, which, owing to the extensiveness of the preparations, did not take place till the 3Oth of October. Ready assistance was given by M. Daguerry, the curate of the Madeleine, where the funeral service was to be held; and thanks to him permission was received for the introduction of female singers into the church, without whom the performance of Mozart's Requiem would have been an impossibility.

Numerous equipages [says Eugene Guinot in the Feuilleton du Siecle of November 4] encumbered last Tuesday the large avenues of the Madeleine church, and the crowd besieged the doors of the Temple where one was admitted only on presenting a letter of invitation. Mourning draperies announced a funeral ceremony, and in seeing this external pomp, this concourse of carriages and liveried servants, and this privilege which permitted only the elect to enter the church, the curious congregated on the square asked: "Who is the great lord [grand seigneur] whom they are burying?" As if there were still grands seigneurs! Within, the gathering was brilliant; the elite of Parisian society, all the strangers of distinction which Paris possesses at this moment, were to be found there…

Many writers complain of the exclusiveness which seems to have presided at the sending out of invitations. M. Guinot remarks in reference to this point:

His testamentary executors [executrices] organised this solemnity magnificently. But, be it from premeditation or from forgetfulness, they completely neglected to invite to the ceremony most of the representatives of the musical world. Members of the Institute, celebrated artists, notable writers, tried in vain to elude the watch-word [consigne] and penetrate into the church, where the women were in a very great majority. Some had come from London, Vienna, and Berlin.

In continuation of my account of the funeral service I shall quote from a report in the Daily News of November 2, 1849:—