We can imagine the tender leave-takings after that.  “I am convinced,” he said, “I am saying an eternal farewell to my native country; I have a presentiment I shall never return.”  And so indeed it proved.

Again to Vienna, by way of Breslau, Dresden and Prague.  In Vienna all was not as rosy as it had been on his first visit.  Haslinger was unwilling to publish more of his compositions, though there were the two concertos, etudes and many short pieces.  The way did not open to give a concert.  He was lonely and unhappy, constantly dreaming of home and the beloved Constantia.  From graphic letters to one of his dearest friends, a few sentences will reveal his inner life.

“To-day is the first of January (1831).  Oh, how sadly this year begins for me!  I love you all above all things.  My poor parents!  How are my friends faring?  I could die for you all.  Why am I doomed to be here so lonely and forsaken?  You can at least open your hearts to each other.  Go and see my parents—­and—­Constantia.”

Although it did not seem advisable to give concerts in Vienna, yet Chopin made many pleasant acquaintances among the musicians and prominent people, and was constantly invited.  He had planned to go from Vienna to either Italy or France.  As there were political troubles in the former country, he decided to start for Paris, stopping on the way at a few places.  In Munich he gave a morning concert, in the hall of the Philharmonie, which won him renown.  From Munich he proceeded to Stuttgart, and during a short stay there, heard the sad news of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians.  This event, it is said, inspired him to compose the C minor Etude, Op. 10, No. 12.

The Poles and everything Polish were at that time the rage in Paris.  The young Polish master found ready entrance into the highest musical and literary circles of this most delightful city of the world.  All was romance, fantasy, passion, which fitted with Chopin’s sensitive and romantic temperament.  Little wonder that he became inspired by contact with some of the greatest in the world of arts and letters.

There were Victor Hugo.  King of the romanticists, Heine, poet and novelist; De Musset, Flaubert, Zola, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Baudelaire, Ary Scheffer, Merimee, Gautier, Berlioz, Balzac, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Hiller, Nourrit, to mention a few.  Liszt was there too, and George Sand, Mendelssohn and Kalkbrenner.  Chopin called on the last named, who was considered the first pianist of the day, and played for him.  Kalkbrenner remarked he had the style of Cramer and the touch of Field.  He proposed that Chopin should study three years with him, and he would then become a great virtuoso.  Of course the young artist might have learned something-on the mechanical side, but at the risk of injuring the originality and style of his playing.  His old friend and teacher Elsner, kept him from doing this.