Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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In 1735 Stanislas Leszczynski, who had been King of Poland from
1704 to 1709, became Duke of Lorraine and Bar, and reigned over
the Duchies till 1766, when an accident--some part of his dress
taking fire--put an end to his existence. As Stanislas was a
wise, kind-hearted, and benevolent prince, his subjects not only
loved him as long as he lived, but also cherished his memory
after his death, when their country had been united to France.
The young, we may be sure, would often hear their elders speak of
the good times of Duke Stanislas, of the Duke (the philosophe
bienfaisant) himself, and of the strange land and people he came
from. But Stanislas, besides being an excellent prince, was also
an amiable, generous gentleman, who, whilst paying due attention
to the well-being of his new subjects, remained to the end of his
days a true Pole. From this circumstance it may be easily
inferred that the Court of Stanislas proved a great attraction to
his countrymen, and that Nancy became a chief halting-place of
Polish travellers on their way to and from Paris. Of course, not
all the Poles that had settled in the Duchies during the Duke's
reign left the country after his demise, nor did their friends
from the fatherland altogether cease to visit them in their new
home. Thus a connection between the two countries was kept up,
and the interest taken by the people of the west in the fortunes
of the people in the east was not allowed to die. Moreover, were
not the Academie de Stanislas founded by the Duke, the monument
erected to his memory, and the square named after him, perpetual
reminders to the inhabitants of Nancy and the visitors to that
town?

Nicholas Chopin came to Warsaw in or about the year 1787.
Karasowski relates in the first and the second German edition of
his biography of Frederick Chopin that the Staroscina [FOOTNOTE:
The wife of a starosta (vide p. 7.)] Laczynska made the
acquaintance of the latter's father, and engaged him as tutor to
her children; but in the later Polish edition he abandons this
account in favour of one given by Count Frederick Skarbek in his
Pamietniki (Memoirs). According to this most trustworthy of
procurable witnesses (why he is the most trustworthy will be seen
presently), Nicholas Chopin's migration to Poland came about in
this way. A Frenchman had established in Warsaw a manufactory of
tobacco, which, as the taking of snuff was then becoming more and
more the fashion, began to flourish in so high a degree that he
felt the need of assistance. He proposed, therefore, to his
countryman, Nicholas Chopin, to come to him and take in hand the
book-keeping, a proposal which was readily accepted.

The first impression of the young Lorrainer on entering the land
of his dreams cannot have been altogether of a pleasant nature.
For in the summer of 1812, when, we are told, the condition of
the people had been infinitely ameliorated by the Prussian and
Russian governments, M. de Pradt, Napoleon's ambassador, found
the nation in a state of semi-barbarity, agriculture in its
infancy, the soil parched like a desert, the animals stunted, the
people, although of good stature, in a state of extreme poverty,
the towns built of wood, the houses filled with vermin, and the
food revolting. This picture will not escape the suspicion of
being overdrawn. But J.G. Seume, who was by no means over-
squeamish, and whom experience had taught the meaning of "to
rough it," asserts, in speaking of Poland in 1805, that, Warsaw
and a few other places excepted, the dunghill was in most houses
literally and without exaggeration the cleanest spot, and the
only one where one could stand without loathing. But if the
general aspect of things left much to be desired from a
utilitarian point of view, its strangeness and picturesqueness
would not fail to compensate an imaginative youth for the want of
order and comfort. The strong contrast of wealth and poverty, of
luxury and distress, that gave to the whole country so melancholy
an appearance, was, as it were, focussed in its capital. Mr.
Coxe, who visited Warsaw not long before Nicholas Chopin's
arrival there, says:--

The streets are spacious, but ill-paved; the churches and
public buildings large and magnificent, the palaces of the
nobility are numerous and splendid; but the greatest part of
the houses, especially the suburbs, are mean and ill-
constructed wooden hovels.

What, however, struck a stranger most, was the throngs of
humanity that enlivened the streets and squares of Warsaw, the
capital of a nation composed of a medley of Poles, Lithuanians,
Red and White Russians, Germans, Muscovites, Jews, and
Wallachians, and the residence of a numerous temporary and
permanent foreign population. How our friend from quiet Nancy--
which long ago had been deserted by royalty and its train, and
where literary luminaries, such as Voltaire, Madame du Chatelet,
Saint Lambert, &c., had ceased to make their fitful appearances--
must have opened his eyes when this varied spectacle unfolded
itself before him.

The streets of stately breadth, formed of palaces in the
finest Italian taste and wooden huts which at every moment
threatened to tumble down on the heads of the inmates; in
these buildings Asiatic pomp and Greenland dirtin strange
union, an ever-bustling population, forming, like a
masked procession, the most striking contrasts. Long-bearded
Jews, and monks in all kinds of habits; nuns of the strictest
discipline, entirely veiled and wrapped in meditation; and in
the large squares troops of young Polesses in light-coloured
silk mantles engaged in conversation; venerable old Polish
gentlemen with moustaches, caftan, girdle, sword, and yellow
and red boots; and the new generation in the most incroyable
Parisian fashion. Turks, Greeks, Russians, Italians, and
French in an ever-changing throng; moreover, an exceedingly
tolerant police that interfered nowise with the popular
amusements, so that in squares and streets there moved about
incessantly Pulchinella theatres, dancing bears, camels, and
monkeys, before which the most elegant carriages as well as
porters stopped and stood gaping.

Thus pictures J. E. Hitzig, the biographer of E. Th. A. Hoffmann,
and himself a sojourner in Warsaw, the life of the Polish capital
in 1807. When Nicholas Chopin saw it first the spectacle in the
streets was even more stirring, varied, and brilliant; for then
Warsaw was still the capital of an independent state, and the
pending and impending political affairs brought to it magnates
from all the principal courts of Europe, who vied with each other
in the splendour of their carriages and horses, and in the number
and equipment of their attendants.

In the introductory part of this work I have spoken of the
misfortunes that befel Poland and culminated in the first
partition. But the buoyancy of the Polish character helped the
nation to recover sooner from this severe blow than could have
been expected. Before long patriots began to hope that the
national disaster might be turned into a blessing. Many
circumstances favoured the realisation of these hopes. Prussia,
on discovering that her interests no longer coincided with those
of her partners of 1772, changed sides, and by-and-by even went
the length of concluding a defensive and offensive alliance with
the Polish Republic. She, with England and other governments,
backed Poland against Russia and Austria. Russia, moreover, had
to turn her attention elsewhere. At the time of Nicholas Chopin's
arrival, Poland was dreaming of a renascence of her former
greatness, and everyone was looking forward with impatience to
the assembly of the Diet which was to meet the following year.
Predisposed by sympathy, he was soon drawn into the current of
excitement and enthusiasm that was surging around him. Indeed,
what young soul possessed of any nobleness could look with
indifference on a nation struggling for liberty and independence.
As he took a great interest in the debates and transactions of
the Diet, he became more and more acquainted with the history,
character, condition, and needs of the country, and this
stimulated him to apply himself assiduously to the study of the
national language, in order to increase, by means of this
faithful mirror and interpreter of a people's heart and mind, his
knowledge of these things. And now I must ask the reader to bear
patiently the infliction of a brief historical summary, which I
would most willingly spare him, were I not prevented by two
strong reasons. In the first place, the vicissitudes of Nicholas
Chopin's early life in Poland are so closely bound up with, or
rather so much influenced by, the political events, that an
intelligible account of the former cannot be given without
referring to the latter; and in the second place, those same
political events are such important factors in the moulding of
the national character, that, if we wish to understand it, they
ought not to be overlooked.

The Diet which assembled at the end of 1788, in order to prevent
the use or rather abuse of the liberum veto, soon formed itself
into a confederation, abolished in 1789 the obnoxious Permanent
Council, and decreed in 1791, after much patriotic oratory and
unpatriotic obstruction, the famous constitution of the 3rd of
May, regarded by the Poles up to this day with loving pride, and
admired and praised at the time by sovereigns and statesmen, Fox
and Burke among them. Although confirming most of the privileges
of the nobles, the constitution nevertheless bore in it seeds of
good promise. Thus, for instance, the crown was to pass after the
death of the reigning king to the Elector of Saxony, and become
thenceforth hereditary; greater power was given to the king and
ministers, confederations and the liberum veto were declared
illegal, the administration of justice was ameliorated, and some
attention was paid to the rights and wrongs of the third estate
and peasantry. But the patriots who already rejoiced in the
prospect of a renewal of Polish greatness and prosperity had
counted without the proud selfish aristocrats, without Russia,
always ready to sow and nurture discord. Hence new troubles--the
confederation of Targowica, Russian demands for the repeal of the
constitution and unconditional submission to the Empress
Catharine II, betrayal by Prussia, invasion, war, desertion of
the national cause by their own king and his joining the
conspirators of Targowica, and then the second partition of
Poland (October 14, 1793), implying a further loss of territory
and population. Now, indeed, the events were hastening towards
the end of the sad drama, the finis poloniae. After much
hypocritical verbiage and cruel coercion and oppression by Russia
and Prussia, more especially by the former, outraged Poland rose
to free itself from the galling yoke, and fought under the noble
Kosciuszko and other gallant generals with a bravery that will
for ever live in the memory of men. But however glorious the
attempt, it was vain. Having three such powers as Russia,
Prussia, and Austria against her, Poland, unsupported by allies
and otherwise hampered, was too weak to hold her own. Without
inquiring into the causes and the faults committed by her
commanders, without dwelling on or even enumerating the
vicissitudes of the struggle, I shall pass on to the terrible
closing scene of the drama--the siege and fall of Praga, the
suburb of Warsaw, and the subsequent massacre. The third
partition (October 24, 1795), in which each of the three powers
took her share, followed as a natural consequence, and Poland
ceased to exist as an independent state. Not, however, for ever;
for when in 1807 Napoleon, after crushing Prussia and defeating
Russia, recast at Tilsit to a great extent the political
conformation of Europe, bullying King Frederick William III and
flattering the Emperor Alexander, he created the Grand Duchy of
Warsaw, over which he placed as ruler the then King of Saxony.

Now let us see how Nicholas Chopin fared while these whirlwinds
passed over Poland. The threatening political situation and the
consequent general insecurity made themselves at once felt in
trade, indeed soon paralysed it. What more particularly told on
the business in which the young Lorrainer was engaged was the
King's desertion of the national cause, which induced the great
and wealthy to leave Warsaw and betake themselves for shelter to
more retired and safer places. Indeed, so disastrous was the
effect of these occurrences on the Frenchman's tobacco
manufactory that it had to be closed. In these circumstances
Nicholas Chopin naturally thought of returning home, but sickness
detained him. When he had recovered his health, Poland was rising
under Kosciuszko. He then joined the national guard, in which he
was before long promoted to the rank of captain. On the 5th of
November, 1794, he was on duty at Praga, and had not his company
been relieved a few hours before the fall of the suburb, he would
certainly have met there his death. Seeing that all was lost he
again turned his thoughts homewards, when once more sickness
prevented him from executing his intention. For a time he tried
to make a living by teaching French, but ere long accepted an
engagement as tutor in the family--then living in the country--of
the Staroscina Laczynska, who meeting him by chance had been
favourably impressed by his manners and accomplishments. In
passing we may note that among his four pupils (two girls and two
boys) was one, Mary, who afterwards became notorious by her
connection with Napoleon I., and by the son that sprang from this
connection, Count Walewski, the minister of Napoleon III. At the
beginning of this century we find Nicholas Chopin at Zelazowa
Wola, near Sochaczew, in the house of the Countess Skarbek, as
tutor to her son Frederick. It was there that he made the
acquaintance of Justina Krzyzanowska, a young lady of noble but
poor family, whom he married in the year 1806, and who became the
mother of four children, three daughters and one son, the latter
being no other than Frederick Chopin, the subject of this
biography. The position of Nicholas Chopin in the house of the
Countess must have been a pleasant one, for ever after there
seems to have existed a friendly relation between the two
families. His pupil, Count Frederick Skarbek, who prosecuted his
studies at Warsaw and Paris, distinguished himself subsequently
as a poet, man of science, professor at the University of Warsaw,
state official, philanthropist, and many-sided author--more
especially as a politico--economical writer. When in his Memoirs
the Count looks back on his youth, he remembers gratefully and
with respect his tutor, speaking of him in highly appreciative
terms. In teaching, Nicholas Chopin's chief aim was to form his
pupils into useful, patriotic citizens; nothing was farther from
his mind than the desire or unconscious tendency to turn them
into Frenchmen. And now approaches the time when the principal
personage makes his appearance on the stage.

Frederick Chopin, the only son and the third of the four children
of Nicholas and Justina Chopin, was born on February 22, 1810,

[FOOTNOTE: See Preface, p. xii. In the earlier editions the date
given was March 1,1809, as in the biography by Karasowski, with
whom agree the earlier J. Fontana (Preface to Chopin's posthumous
works.--1855), C. Sowinski (Les musiciens polonais et slaves.--
1857), and the writer of the Chopin article in Mendel's
Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon (1872). According to M. A.
Szulc (Fryderyk Chopin.--1873) and the inscription on the
memorial (erected in 1880) in the Holy Cross Church at Warsaw,
the composer was born on March 2, 1809. The monument in Pere
Lachaise, at Paris, bears the date of Chopin's death, but not
that of his birth. Felis, in his Biographie universelle des
musiciens, differs widely from these authorities. The first
edition (1835--1844) has only the year--1810; the second edition
(1861--1865) adds month and day--February 8.]

in a mean little house at Zelazowa Wola, a village about twenty-
eight English miles from Warsaw belonging to the Countess
Skarbek.

[FOOTNOTE: Count Wodzinski, after indicating the general features
of Polish villages--the dwor (manor-house) surrounded by a
"bouquet of trees"; the barns and stables forming a square with a
well in the centre; the roads planted with poplars and bordered
with thatched huts; the rye, wheat, rape, and clover fields, &c.--
describes the birthplace of Frederick Chopin as follows: "I have
seen there the same dwor embosomed in trees, the same outhouses,
the same huts, the same plains where here and there a wild pear-
tree throws its shadow. Some steps from the mansion I stopped
before a little cot with a slated roof, flanked by a little
wooden perron. Nothing has been changed for nearly a hundred
years. A dark passage traverses it. On the left, in a room
illuminated by the reddish flame of slowly-consumed logs, or by
the uncertain light of two candles placed at each extremity of
the long table, the maid-servants spin as in olden times, and
relate to each other a thousand marvellous legends. On the right,
in a lodging of three rooms, so low that one can touch the
ceiling, a man of some thirty years, brown, with vivacious eyes,
the face closely shaven." This man was of course Nicholas Chopin.
I need hardly say that Count Wodzinski's description is
novelistically tricked out. His accuracy may be judged by the
fact that a few pages after the above passage he speaks of the
discoloured tiles of the roof which he told his readers before
was of slate.]

The son of the latter, Count Frederick Skarbek, Nicholas Chopin's
pupil, a young man of seventeen, stood godfather and gave his
name to the new-born offspring of his tutor. Little Frederick's
residence at the village cannot have been of long duration.

The establishment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1807 had
ushered in a time big with chances for a capable man, and we may
be sure that a young husband and father, no doubt already on the
look-out for some more lucrative and independent employment, was
determined not to miss them. Few peaceful revolutions, if any,
can compare in thoroughness with the one that then took place in
Poland; a new sovereign ascended the throne, two differently-
constituted representative bodies superseded the old Senate and
Diet, the French code of laws was introduced, the army and civil
service underwent a complete re-organisation, public instruction
obtained a long-needed attention, and so forth. To give an idea
of the extent of the improvement effected in matters of
education, it is enough to mention that the number of schools
rose from 140 to 634, and that a commission was formed for the
publication of suitable books of instruction in the Polish
language. Nicholas Chopin's hopes were not frustrated; for on
October 1, 1810, he was appointed professor of the French
language at the newly-founded Lyceum in Warsaw, and a little more
than a year after, on January 1, 1812, to a similar post at the
School of Artillery and Engineering.

The exact date when Nicholas Chopin and his family settled in
Warsaw is not known, nor is it of any consequence. We may,
however, safely assume that about this time little Frederick was
an inhabitant of the Polish metropolis. During the first years of
his life the parents may have lived in somewhat straitened
circumstances. The salary of the professorship, even if regularly
paid, would hardly suffice for a family to live comfortably, and
the time was unfavourable for gaining much by private tuition. M.
de Pradt, describing Poland in 1812, says:--

Nothing could exceed the misery of all classes. The army was
not paid, the officers were in rags, the best houses were in
ruins, the greatest lords were compelled to leave Warsaw from
want of money to provide for their tables. No pleasures, no
society, no invitations as in Paris and in London. I even saw
princesses quit Warsaw from the most extreme distress. The
Princess Radziwill had brought two women from England and
France, she wished to send them back, but had to keep them
because she was unable to pay their salaries and travelling
expenses. I saw in Warsaw two French physicians who informed
me that they could not procure their fees even from the
greatest lords.

But whatever straits the parents may have been put to, the weak,
helpless infant would lack none of the necessaries of life, and
enjoy all the reasonable comforts of his age.

When in 1815 peace was restored and a period of quiet followed,
the family must have lived in easy circumstances; for besides
holding appointments as professor at some public schools (under
the Russian government he became also one of the staff of
teachers at the Military Preparatory School), Nicholas Chopin
kept for a number of years a boarding-school, which was
patronised by the best families of the country. The supposed
poverty of Chopin's parents has given rise to all sorts of
misconceptions and misstatements. A writer in Larousse's "Grand
dictionnaire universel du XIXe siecle" even builds on it a theory
explanatory of the character of Chopin and his music: "Sa famille
d'origine francaise," he writes, "jouissait d'une mediocre
fortune; de la, peut-etre, certains froissements dans
l'organisation nerveuse et la vive sensibilite de l'enfant,
sentiments qui devaient plus tard se refleter dans ses oeuvres,
empreintes generalement d'une profonde melancolie." If the writer
of the article in question had gone a little farther back, he
might have found a sounder basis for his theory in the extremely
delicate physical organisation of the man, whose sensitiveness
was so acute that in early infancy he could not hear music
without crying, and resisted almost all attempts at appeasing
him.

The last-mentioned fact, curious and really noteworthy in itself,
acquires a certain preciousness by its being the only one
transmitted to us of that period of Chopin's existence. But this
scantiness of information need not cause us much regret. During
the first years of a man's life biography is chiefly concerned
with his surroundings, with the agencies that train his faculties
and mould his character. A man's acts and opinions are
interesting in proportion to the degree of consolidation attained
by his individuality. Fortunately our material is abundant enough
to enable us to reconstruct in some measure the milieu into which
Chopin was born and in which he grew up. We will begin with that
first circle which surrounds the child--his family. The negative
advantages which our Frederick found there--the absence of the
privations and hardships of poverty, with their depressing and
often demoralising influence--have already been adverted to; now
I must say a few words about the positive advantages with which
he was favoured. And it may be at once stated that they cannot be
estimated too highly. Frederick enjoyed the greatest of blessings
that can be bestowed upon mortal man--viz., that of being born
into a virtuous and well-educated family united by the ties of
love. I call it the greatest of blessings, because neither
catechism and sermons nor schools and colleges can take the
place,, or compensate for the want, of this education that does
not stop at the outside, but by its subtle, continuous action
penetrates to the very heart's core and pervades the whole being.
The atmosphere in which Frederick lived was not only moral and
social, but also distinctly intellectual.

The father, Nicholas Chopin, seems to have been a man of worth
and culture, honest of purpose, charitable in judgment, attentive
to duty, and endowed with a good share of prudence and
commonsense. In support of this characterisation may be advanced
that among his friends he counted many men of distinction in
literature, science, and art; that between him and the parents of
his pupils as well as the pupils themselves there existed a
friendly relation; that he was on intimate terms with several of
his colleagues; and that his children not only loved, but also
respected him. No one who reads his son's letters, which indeed
give us some striking glimpses of the man, can fail to notice
this last point. On one occasion, when confessing that he had
gone to a certain dinner two hours later than he had been asked,
Frederick foresees his father's anger at the disregard for what
is owing to others, and especially to one's elders; and on
another occasion he makes excuses for his indifference to non-
musical matters, which, he thinks, his father will blame. And
mark, these letters were written after Chopin had attained
manhood. What testifies to Nicholas Chopin's, abilities as a
teacher and steadiness as a man, is the unshaken confidence of
the government: he continued in his position at the Lyceumtill
after the revolution in 1831, when this institution, like many
others, was closed; he was then appointed a member of the board
for the examination of candidates for situations as
schoolmasters, and somewhat later he became professor of the
French language at the Academy of the Roman Catholic Clergy.