RUPTURE OF THE SAND-CHOPIN CONNECTION.—HER OWN, LISZT'S, AND KARASOWSKI'S ACCOUNTS.-THE LUCREZIA FLORIANI INCIDENT.—FURTHER INVESTIGATION OF THE CAUSES OF THE RUPTURE BY THE LIGHT OF LETTERS AND THE INFORMATION OF GUTMANN, FRANCHOMME, AND MADAME RUBIO.—SUMMING-UP OF THE EVIDENCE.—CHOPIN'S COMPOSITIONS IN 1847.—GIVES A CONCERT, HIS LAST IN PARIS (1848): WHAT AND HOW HE PLAYED; THE CHARACTER OF THE AUDIENCE.—GEORGE SAND AND CHOPIN MEET ONCE MORE.—THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION; CHOPIN MAKES UP HIS MIND TO VISIT ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

WE now come to the catastrophe of Chopin's life, the rupture of his connection with George Sand. Although there is no lack of narratives in which the causes, circumstances, and time of this rupture are set forth with absolute positiveness, it is nevertheless an undeniable fact that we are not at the present moment, nor, all things well considered, shall be even in the most distant future, in a position to speak on this subject otherwise than conjecturally.

[FOOTNOTE: Except the letter of George Sand given on p. 75, and the note of Chopin to George Sand which will be given a little farther on, nothing, I think, of their correspondence has become public. But even if their letters were forth-coming, it is more likely than not that they would fail to clear up the mystery. Here I ought, perhaps, to reproduce the somewhat improbable story told in the World of December 14, 1887, by the Paris correspondent who signs himself "Theoc." He writes as follows: "I have heard that it was by saving her letters to Chopin that M. Alexandre Dumas won the friendship of George Sand. The anecdote runs thus: When Chopin died, his sister found amongst his papers some two hundred letters of Madame Sand, which she took with her to Poland. By chance this lady had some difficulties at the frontier with the Russian custom-house officials; her trunks were seized, and the box containing the letters was mislaid and lost. A few years afterwards, one of the custom-house officials found the letters and kept them, not knowing the name and the address of the Polish lady who had lost them. M. Dumas discovered this fact, and during a journey in Russia he explained to this official how painful it would be if by some indiscretion these letters of the illustrious novelist ever got into print. 'Let me restore them to Madame Sand,' said M. Dumas. 'And my duty?' asked the customs official. 'If anybody ever claims the letters,' replied M. Dumas, 'I authorise you to say that I stole them.' On this condition M. Dumas, then a young man, obtained the letters, brought them back to Paris, and restored them to Madame Sand, whose acquaintance he thus made. Madame Sand burnt all her letters to Chopin, but she never forgot the service that M. Dumas had rendered her."]

I have done my utmost to elucidate the tragic event which it is impossible not to regard as one of the most momentous crises in Chopin's life, and have succeeded in collecting besides the material already known much that is new; but of what avail is this for coming to a final decision if we find the depositions hopelessly contradictory, and the witnesses more or less untrustworthy—self-interest makes George Sand's evidence suspicious, the instability of memory that of others. Under the circumstances it seems to me safest to place before the reader the depositions of the various witnesses—not, however, without comment—and leave him to form his own conclusions. I shall begin with the account which George Sand gives in her Ma Vie:—

Liszt's account is noteworthy because it gives us the opinion of a man who knew the two principal actors in the drama intimately, and had good opportunities to learn what contemporary society thought about it. Direct knowledge of the facts, however, Liszt had not, for he was no longer a friend either of the one or the other of the two parties:—

However unreliable Liszt's facts may be, the PHILOSOPHY of his account shows real insight. Karasowski, on the other hand, has neither facts nor insight. He speaks with a novelist's confidence and freedom of characters whom he in no way knows, and about whom he has nothing to tell but the vaguest and most doubtful of second-hand hearsays:—

By this heroic means Karasowski understands the publication of George Sand's novel Lucrezia Floriani (in 1847), concerning which he says the story goes that "out of refined cruelty the proof-sheets were handed to him [Chopin] with the request to correct the misprints." Karasowski also reports as a "fact" that

George Sand's view of the Lucrezia Floriani incident must be given in full. In Ma Vie she writes as follows:—

The arguments advanced by George Sand are anything but convincing; in fact, her defence is extremely weak. She does not even tell us that she did not make use of Chopin as a model. That she drew a caricature and not a portrait will hardly be accepted as an excuse, nay, is sure to be regarded as the very head and front of her offending. But George Sand had extraordinarily naive notions on this subject, notions which are not likely to be shared by many, at least not by many outside the fraternities of novelists and dramatists. Having mentioned, in speaking of her grand-uncle the Abbe de Beaumont, that she thought of him when sketching the portrait of a certain canon in Consuelo, and that she had very much exaggerated the resemblance to meet the requirements of the romance, she remarks that portraits traced in this way are no longer portraits, and that those who feel offended on recognising themselves do an injustice both to the author and themselves. "Caricature or idealisation," she writes, "it is no longer the original model, and this model has little judgment if it thinks it recognises itself, if it becomes angry or vain on seeing what art or imagination has been able to make of it." This is turning the tables with a vengeance; and if impudence can silence the voice of truth and humanity, George Sand has gained her case. In her account of the Lucrezia Floriani incident George Sand proceeds as usual when she is attacked and does not find it more convenient simply to declare that she will not condescend to defend herself—namely, she envelops the whole matter in a mist of beautiful words and sentiments out of which issues—and this is the only clearly-distinguishable thing—her own saintly self in celestial radiance. But notwithstanding all her arguments and explanations there remains the fact that Liszt and thousands of others, I one of them, read Lucrezia Floriani and were not a moment in doubt that Chopin was the prototype of Prince Karol. We will not charge George Sand with the atrocity of writing the novel for the purpose of getting rid of Chopin; but we cannot absolve her from the sin of being regardless of the pain she would inflict on one who once was dear to her, and who still loved her ardently. Even Miss Thomas, [FOOTNOTE: In George Sand, a volume of the "Eminent Women Series."] who generally takes George Sand at her own valuation, and in this case too tries to excuse her, admits that in Lucrezia Floriani there was enough of reality interwoven to make the world hasten to identify or confound Chopin with Prince Karol, that Chopin, the most sensitive of mortals, could not but be pained by the inferences which would be drawn, that "perhaps if only as a genius he had the right to be spared such an infliction," and that, therefore, "one must wish it could have appeared in this light to Madame Sand." This is a mild way of expressing disapproval of conduct that shows, to say the least, an inhuman callousness to the susceptibilities of a fellow-being. And to speak of the irresistible prompting of genius in connection with one who had her faculties so well under her control is downright mockery. It would, however, be foolish to expect considerateness for others in one who needlessly detailed and proclaimed to the world not only the little foibles but also the drunkenness and consequent idiocy and madness of a brother whose family was still living. Her practice was, indeed, so much at variance with her profession that it is preposterous rather to accept than to doubt her words. George Sand was certainly not the self-sacrificing woman she pretended to be; for her sacrifices never outlasted her inclinations, they were, indeed, nothing else than an abandonment to her desires. And these desires were the directors of her reason, which, aided by an exuberant imagination, was never at a loss to justify any act, be it ever so cruel and abject. In short, the chief characteristic of George Sand's moral constitution was her incapacity of regarding anything she did otherwise than as right. What I have said is fully borne out by her Ma Vie and the "Correspondance," which, of course, can be more easily and safely examined than her deeds and spoken words.

And now we will continue our investigations of the causes and circumstances of the rupture. First I shall quote some passages from letters written by George Sand, between which will be inserted a note from Chopin to her. If the reader does not see at once what several of these quotations have to do with the matter under discussion, he will do so before long.

The following letter, of an earlier date than those from which my last two excerpts are taken, is more directly concerned with Chopin.

If all that George Sand here says is bona fide, the letter proves that the rupture had not yet taken place. Indeed, Gutmann was of opinion that it did not take place till 1848, shortly before Chopin's departure for England, that, in-fact, she, her daughter, and son-in-law were present at the concert he gave on February 16, 1848. That this, however, was not the case is shown both by a letter written by George Sand from Nohant on February 18, 1848, and by another statement of Gutmann's, according to which one of the causes of the rupture was the marriage of Solange with Clesinger of which Chopin (foreseeing unhappiness which did not fail to come, and led to separation) did not approve. Another cause, he thought, was Chopin's disagreements with Maurice Sand. There were hasty remarks and sharp retorts between lover and son, and scenes in consequence. Gutmann is a very unsatisfactory informant, everything he read and heard seemed to pass through the retort of his imagination and reappear transformed as his own experience.

A more reliable witness is Franchomme, who in a letter to me summed up the information which he had given me on this subject by word of mouth as follows:—

Of the quarrel at Nohant, Franchomme gave the following account:—There was staying at that time at Nohant a gentleman who treated Madame Clesinger invariably with rudeness. One day as Clesinger and his wife went downstairs the person in question passed without taking off his hat. The sculptor stopped him, and said, "Bid madam a good day"; and when the gentleman or churl, as the case may be, refused, he gave him a box on the ear. George Sand, who stood at the top of the stairs, saw it, came down, and gave in her turn Clesinger a box on the ear. After this she turned her son-in-law together with his wife out of her house, and wrote the above-mentioned letter to Chopin.

Madame Rubio had also heard of the box on the ear which George Sand gave Clesinger. According to this informant there were many quarrels between mother and daughter, the former objecting to the latter's frequent visits to Chopin, and using this as a pretext to break with him. Gutmann said to me that Chopin was fond of Solange, though not in love with her. But now we have again got into the current of gossip, and the sooner we get out of it the better.

Before I draw my conclusions from the evidence I have collected, I must find room for some extracts from two letters, respectively written on August 9, 1847, and December 14,1847, to Charles Poncy. The contents of these extracts will to a great extent be a mystery to the reader, a mystery to which I cannot furnish the key. Was Solange the chief subject of George Sand's lamentations? Had Chopin or her brother, or both, to do with this paroxysm of despair?

After saying how she has been overwhelmed by a chain of chagrins, how her purest intentions have had a fatal issue, how her best actions have been blamed by men and punished by heaven as crimes, she proceeds:—

The next quotation is from the letter dated Nohant, December 14, 1847. Desirez is the wife of Charles Poncy, to whom the letter is addressed.

We have, then, the choice of two explanations of the rupture: George Sand's, that it was caused by the disagreement of Chopin and her son; and Franchomme's, that it was brought about by Chopin's disregard of George Sand's injunction not to receive her daughter and son-in-law. I prefer the latter version, which is reconcilable with George Sand's letters, confirmed by the testimony of several of Chopin's friends, and given by an honest, simple-minded man who may be trusted to have told a plain unvarnished tale.

[FOOTNOTE: The contradictions are merely apparent, and disappear if we consider that George Sand cannot have had any inclination to give to Gutmann and Poncy an explanation of the real state of matters. Moreover, when she wrote to the former the rupture had, according to Franchomme, not yet taken place.]

But whatever reason may have been alleged to justify, whatever circumstance may have been the ostensible cause of the rupture, in reality it was only a pretext. On this point all agree—Franchomme, Gutmann, Kwiatkowski, Madame Rubio, Liszt, &c. George Sand was tired of Chopin, and as he did not leave her voluntarily, the separation had to be forced upon him. Gutmann thought there was no rupture at all. George Sand went to Nohant without Chopin, ceased to write to him, and thus the connection came to an end. Of course, Chopin ought to have left her before she had recourse to the "heroic means" of kicking him, metaphorically speaking, out of doors. But the strength of his passion for this woman made him weak. If a tithe of what is rumoured about George Sand's amorous escapades is true, a lover who stayed with her for eight years must have found his capacity of overlooking and forgiving severely tested. We hear on all sides of the infidelities she permitted herself. A Polish friend of Chopin's informed me that one day when he was about to enter the composer's, room to pay him a visit, the married Berrichon female servant of George Sand came out of it; and Chopin, who was lying ill in bed, told him afterwards that she had been complaining of her mistress and husband. Gutmann, who said that Chopin knew of George Sand's occasional infidelities, pretended to have heard him say when she had left him behind in Paris: "I would overlook all if only she would allow me to stay with her at Nohant." I regard these and such like stories, especially the last one, with suspicion (is it probable that the reticent artist was communicative on so delicate a subject, and with Gutmann, his pupil and a much younger man?), but they cannot be ignored, as they are characteristic of how Chopin's friends viewed his position. And yet, tormented as he must have been in the days of possession, crushed as he was by the loss, tempted as he subsequently often felt to curse her and her deceitfulness, he loved and missed George Sand to the very end—even the day before his death he said to Franchomme that she had told him he would die in no other arms but hers (que je ne mourrais que dans ses bras).

If George Sand had represented her separation from Chopin as a matter of convenience, she would have got more sympathy and been able to make out a better case.

Besides Chopin's illnesses became more frequent, his strength diminished from day to day, and care and attendance were consequently more than ever needful. That he was a "detestable patient" has already been said. The world takes it for granted that the wife or paramour of a man of genius is in duty bound to sacrifice herself for him. But how does the matter stand when there is genius on both sides, and self-sacrifice of either party entails loss to the world? By the way, is it not very selfish and hypocritical of this world which generally does so little for men of genius to demand that women shall entirely, self-denyingly devote themselves to their gifted lovers? Well, both George Sand and Chopin had to do work worth doing, and if one of them was hampered by the other in doing it, the dissolution of the union was justified. But perhaps this was not the reason of the separation. At any rate, George Sand does not advance such a plea. Still, it would have been unfair not to discuss this possible point of view.

The passage from the letter of George Sand dated September 1, 1846, which I quoted earlier in this chapter, justifies us, I think, in assuming that, although she was still keeping on her apartments in the Square d'Orleans, the phalanstery had ceased to exist. The apartments she gave up probably sometime in 1847; at any rate, she passed the winter of 1847-8, for the most part at least, at Nohant; and when after the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 she came to Paris (between the 9th and 14th of March), she put up at a hotel garni. Chopin continued to live in his old quarters in the Square d'Orldans, and, according to Gutmann, was after the cessation of his connection with George Sand in the habit of dining either with him (Gutmann) or Grzymala, that is to say, in their company.

It is much to be regretted that no letters are forthcoming to tell us of Chopin's feelings and doings at this time. I can place before the reader no more than one note, the satisfactory nature of which makes up to some extent for its brevity. It is addressed to Franchomme; dated Friday, October 1, 1847; and contains only these few words:—

In this year—i.e., 1847—appeared the three last works which Chopin published, although among his posthumous compositions there are two of a later date. The Trois Mazurkas, Op. 63 (dedicated to the Comtesse L. Czosnowska), and the Trois Valses, Op. 64 (dedicated respectively to Madame la Comtesse Potocka, Madame la Baronne de Rothschild, and Madame la Baronne Bronicka), appeared in September, and the Sonata for piano and violoncello, Op. 65 (dedicated to Franchomme), in October. Now I will say of these compositions only that the mazurkas and waltzes are not inferior to his previous works of this kind, and that the sonata is one of his most strenuous efforts in the larger forms. Mr. Charles Halle remembers going one evening in 1847 with Stephen Heller to Chopin, who had invited some friends to let them hear this sonata which he had lately finished. On arriving at his house they found him rather unwell; he went about the room bent like a half-opened penknife. The visitors proposed to leave him and to postpone the performance, but Chopin would not hear of it. He said he would try. Having once begun, he soon became straight again, warming as he proceeded. As will be seen from some remarks of Madame Dubois's, which I shall quote farther on, the sonata did not make an altogether favourable impression on the auditors.

The name of Madame Dubois reminds me of the soiree immortalised by a letter of Madame Girardin (see the one of March 7, 1847, in Vol. IV. of Le Vicomte de Launay), and already several times alluded to by me in preceding chapters. At this soiree Chopin not only performed several of his pieces, but also accompanied on a second piano his E minor Concerto which was played by his pupil, the youthful and beautiful Mdlle. Camille O'Meara. But the musical event par excellence of the period of Chopin's life with which we are concerned in this chapter is his concert, the last he gave in Paris, on February 16, 1848. Before I proceed with my account of it, I must quote a note, enclosing tickets for this concert, which Chopin wrote at this time to Franchomme. It runs thus: "The best places en evidence for Madame D., but not for her cook." Madame D. was Madame Paul Delaroche, the wife of the great painter, and a friend of Franchomme's.

But here is a copy of the original programme:—

The report of "M. S." in the Gazette musicale of February 20, 1848, transports us at once into the midst of the exquisite, perfume-laden atmosphere of Pleyel's rooms on February 16:—

As this report, although it enables us to realise the atmosphere, is otherwise lacking in substance, we must try to get further information elsewhere. Happily, there is plenty at our disposal.

Stephen Heller's remark to me, that Chopin became in his last years so weak that his playing was sometimes hardly audible, I have already related in a preceding chapter. There I have also mentioned what Mr. Charles Halle' told me—namely, that in the latter part of his life Chopin often played forte passages piano and even pianissimo, that, for instance, at the concert we are speaking of he played the two forte passages towards the end of the Barcarole pianissimo and with all sorts of dynamic finesses. Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, who was present at the concert on February 16, 1848, gave some interesting recollections of it, after the reading of a paper on the subject of Chopin, by Mr. G. A. Osborne, at one of the meetings of the Musical Association (see Proceedings, of the Musical Association for the year 1879-80):—

In connection with what Mr. Goldschmidt and the writer in the Gazette musicale say about the difficulty of admission and a sifted list, I have to record, and I shall do no more than record, Franchomme's denial. "I really believe," he said to me, "that this is a mere fiction. I saw Chopin every day; how, then, could I remain ignorant of it?"

To complete my account of Chopin's last concert in Paris, I have yet to add some scraps of information derived from Un nid d'autographes, by Oscar Comettant, who was present at it, and, moreover, reported on it in Le Siecle. The memory of the event was brought back to him when on looking over autographs in the possession of Auguste Wolff, the successor of Camille Pleyel, he found a ticket for the above described concert. As the concert so was also the ticket unlike that of any other artist. "Les lettres d'ecriture anglaise etaient gravees au burin et imprimees en taille-douce sur de beau papier mi-carton glace, d'un carre long elegant et distingue." It bore the following words and figures:—

M. Comettant, in contradiction to what has been said by others about Chopin's physical condition, states that when the latter came on the platform, he walked upright and without feebleness; his face, though pale, did not seem greatly altered; and he played as he had always played. But M. Comettant was told that Chopin, having spent at the concert all his moral and physical energy, afterwards nearly fainted in the artists' room.

In March Chopin and George Sand saw each other once more. We will rest satisfied with the latter's laconic account of the meeting already quoted: "Je serrai sa main tremblante et glacee. Je voulu lui parler, il s'echappa." Karasowski's account of this last meeting is in the feuilleton style and a worthy pendant to that of the first meeting:—

And then follow wonderful conversations, sighs, blushes, tears, a lady hiding behind an ivy screen, and afterwards advancing with a gliding step, and whispering with a look full of repentance: "Frederick!" Alas, this was not the way George Sand met her dismissed lovers. Moreover, let it be remembered she was at this time not a girl in her teens, but a woman of nearly forty-four.

The outbreak of the revolution on February 22, 1848, upset the arrangements for the second concert, which was to take place on the 10th of March, and, along with the desire to seek forgetfulness of the grievous loss he had sustained in a change of scene, decided him at last to accept the pressing and unwearied invitations of his Scotch and English friends to visit Great Britain. On April 2 the Gazette musicale announced that Chopin would shortly betake himself to London and pass the season there. And before many weeks had passed he set out upon his journey. But the history of his doings in the capital and in other parts of the United Kingdom shall be related in another chapter.