FTER Chopinʼs death, his effects were sold by auction in Paris, and the furniture of his two salons, with the souvenirs he had delighted to have around him, were bought by Miss Stirling, a Scotch lady, one of his pupils and enthusiastic admirers. She took them home with her, and they formed a kind of Chopin Museum. This interesting collection included a portrait of the gifted artist, painted by his friend, Ary Schäffer; a grand piano, by Pleyel, on which Chopin had generally played; a service of Sèvres porcelain, with the inscription, “Offert par Louis Philippe à Frédéric Chopin, 1839;” a splendid and costly casket, presented by Rothschild; and carpets, table-covers, and easy chairs, worked by Chopinʼs pupils.
Miss Stirling directed, in her will, that when she died these relics were to be sent to Chopinʼs mother, to whose house in Warsaw they were accordingly conveyed in 1858. After the death of Madame Chopin, 1861, they passed into the hands of her daughter, Isabella Barcinska. This lady occupied the second floor of one of two houses standing exactly on the boundary between the “New World,” and the “Cracow Suburbs,” and belonging to Count Andreas Zamoyski.
UPROAR IN WARSAW.At the commencement of the political disturbances, which preceded the insurrection of January, 1863, a band of excited young men, inflamed by opinions which were far from being shared by the public, conspired to murder all the deputies. Although the miserable schemes of these fanatical patriots completely failed, they continued to contrive fresh ones, till, at length, exasperated beyond endurance by the bloody conflict which raged through the whole country, they laid a plot to take the life of Count von Berg, who, on the recall of Prince Constantine, had become supreme governor of Poland. Count Berg was returning in his carriage, on the 19th September, 1863, at six in the evening, with an escort of Circassians, from the Belvedère to the Palace. When the carriage came to the spot where the “New World” and “Cracow Suburb” adjoin, a shot, followed by some Orsini bomb-shells, was fired from a window on the fourth floor of Count Zamoyskʼs house. The street was immediately in an uproar, but no one was killed, and only a horse or two belonging to the escort wounded. A detachment of the military, who were at that time always kept in marching order on the Saxon Square, came up in a few minutes. The soldiers surrounded both houses, rudely dragged out the women, and left them in the road, while the men were sent, under a military convoy, to the citadel.
As lava pouring forth from a volcano uproots and annihilates, with its fiery heat, all objects in its pathway, so rushed the angry soldiery from room to room, ruthlessly destroying all that was within their reach. Furniture, pianos, books, manuscripts; in short, everything in the house was flung out of the windows, while wardrobes and other articles too heavy to move were first cut up with hatchets, and the legs of pianos sawn off. These two houses were in the best quarter of the town, and occupied only by well-to do people. An idea may be formed of the quantity of furniture they contained from the fact, that there were from fifteen to twenty pianos.
DESTRUCTION OF CHOPINʼS LETTERS. When the brutal and insensate soldiery arrived at the second storey of the house inhabited by Chopinʼs sister, the mementoes of the great artist, which the whole family cherished with such pious care, were doomed to destruction. The piano—one of Buchholtzʼs—on which he had received his earliest instruction, and which had been the confidant and interpreter of his first musical ideas, was flung into the street by these Vandals.[11] At night soldiers made a stack of the ruined furniture in the square at the foot of the statue of Copernicus, and filling their kettles with the wine, spirit, and sugar from the ransacked shops, they made merry round the fire, mixing punch and singing boisterous songs. Pictures, books, and papers—among the latter Chopinʼs correspondence with his family during eighteen years—were thrown in to feed the flames. Eye-witnesses relate that an officer, having lighted upon a portrait of Chopin, painted by a friend, gazed at it long and earnestly before committing his wanton deed. The reflection which illumined the city announced to the terrified inhabitants that the reign of military terror had begun.
But more to be deplored than the loss of any other relics, is the destruction of the letters, in which Chopin had poured forth all his affection for his family, his love for his country, his enthusiasm for his art, and his admiration for all that is beautiful and noble. The letters to his parents from Paris, written at a period when he was daily gathering fresh laurels, and was in intimate relations with the leading artists and the highest personages in the State, were not only of extreme interest, but of historical value, as faithful and vivid pictures of the times. For in these spirited and witty writings, Chopin often gave, in a word or two, a more life-like portrayal of his contemporaries than is to be found in many a long and elaborate description. The brightest, happiest period of his life, its real summer-time, was between the years 1832 and 1837; while his sojourn in Vienna, with all its hopes and dreams, may be called the spring-time of his existence. But the non-fulfilment of these hopes depressed the readily despondent spirit of the artist. The delicacy of his constitution, and the nervous excitability induced by constant pianoforte playing, unfortunately deprived him of that energy, of which no one is more in need than the musician who performs in public. Chopin succumbed to instead of fighting against difficulties; he loved peace; but life—and to the artist above all—is a battle.
Being a stranger in Vienna, he was obliged to depend on the advice of others, and was alternately suspicious and mistrustful, or confiding as a child. The disturbances in his country deprived him, as a Pole, of the protection of the chief dignitaries of Vienna; while among the artists he met with indifference, and sometimes envy. Thus, irresolute, and dispirited, he beheld other pianists gaining profit and approbation, and himself only took part in a single matinée given on April 4th, in the large Redoubt Hall, by the vocalist, Madame Garcia-Vestris. He gave but one concert,[12] and that not until the beginning of June, when, according to their annual custom, and partly also on account of the cholera epidemic, the wealthier inhabitants had left the city; as might be expected the attendance was small, and the expenses exceeded the receipts.
LAST CONCERT IN GERMANY.Disappointed in his expectations, Chopin went to Münich, where he was obliged to stay some weeks, awaiting money for his journey to Paris. This gave him an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the first artists: among others, Bärmann, Berg, Shunke, and Stunz, who, delighted with his playing and his works, persuaded him to perform at the Philharmonic Societyʼs concerts. At one of these Frederic played his E minor Concerto, with orchestral accompaniments. Carried away alike by the beauty of the composition, and the charm and poetry of the execution, the audience overwhelmed the young virtuoso with hearty and genuine applause.
This was Chopinʼs swan-song on German soil, for, during the eighteen years of his residence abroad, he never again publicly performed in Germany. His last visit to Vienna seemed to check all his desires in that direction.