[Footnote:  Of Grzymala and Fontana more will be heard in the sequel.  Prince Casimir Lubomirski was a passionate lover of music, and published various compositions.  Liszt writes that Orda, “who seemed to command a future,” was killed at the age of twenty in Algiers.  Karasowski gives the same information, omitting, however, the age.  My inquiries about Orda among French musicians and Poles have had no result.  Although the data do not tally with those of Liszt and Karasowski, one is tempted to identify Chopin’s friend with the Napoleon Orda mentioned in Sowinski’s Musiciens polonais et slaves—­“A pianist-composer who had made himself known since the events of 1831.  One owes to him the publication of a Polish Album devoted to the composers of this nation, published at Paris in 1838.  M. Orda is the author of several elegantly-written pianoforte works.”  In a memoir prefixed to an edition of Chopin’s mazurkas and waltzes (Boosey & Co.), J.W.  Davison mentions a M. Orda (the “M.” stands, I suppose, for Monsieur) and Charles Filtsch as pupils of Chopin.]

It was well for Chopin that he was so abundantly provided with friends, for, as Hiller told me, he could not do without company.  But here is Chopin’s letter to Franchomme:—­

   Begun on Saturday, the 14th, and finished on Wednesday, the
   18th.

Dear friend,—­It would be useless to excuse myself for my silence.  If my thoughts could but go without paper to the post-office!  However, you know me too well not to know that I, unfortunately, never do what I ought to do.  I got here very comfortably (except for a little disagreeable episode, caused by an excessively odoriferous gentleman who went as far as Chartres—­he surprised me in the night-time).  I have found more occupation in Paris than I left behind me, which will, without doubt, hinder me from visiting you at Coteau.  Coteau! oh Coteau!  Say, my child, to the whole family at Coteau that I shall never forget my stay in Touraine—­that so much kindness has made me for ever grateful.  People think I am stouter and look very well, and I feel wonderfully well, thanks to the ladies that sat beside me at dinner, who bestowed truly maternal attentions upon me.  When I think of all this the whole appears to me such an agreeable dream that I should like to sleep again.  And the peasant-girls of Pormic! [Footnote:  A village near the place where Chopin had been staying.] and the flour! or rather your graceful nose which you were obliged to plunge into it.

[Footnote:  The remark about the “flour” and Franchomme’s “nez en forme gracieuse” is an allusion to some childish game in which Chopin, thanks to his aquiline nose, got the better of his friend, who as regards this feature was less liberally endowed.]

   A very interesting visit has interrupted my letter, which was
   begun three days ago, and which I have not been able to
   finish till to-day.