As time showed, I was wrong in yielding to their hopes and my own solicitude.  It was indeed enough to go abroad alone with two children, one already ill, the other full of exuberant health and spirits, without taking upon myself also a terrible anxiety and a physician’s responsibility.

But Chopin was just then in a state of health that reassured everybody.  With the exception of Grzymala, who saw more clearly how matters stood, we were all hopeful.  I nevertheless begged Chopin to consider well his moral strength, because for several years he had never contemplated without dread the idea of leaving Paris, his physician, his acquaintances, his room even, and his piano.  He was a man of imperious habits, and every change, however small it might be, was a terrible event in his life.

Seeing that Liszt—­who was at the time in Italy—­and Karasowski speak only from hearsay, we cannot do better than accept George Sand’s account, which contains nothing improbable.  In connection with this migration to the south, I must, however, not omit to mention certain statements of Adolph Gutmann, one of Chopin’s pupils.  Here is the substance of what Gutmann told me.  Chopin was anxious to go to Majorca, but for some time was kept in suspense by the scantiness of his funds.  This threatening obstacle, however, disappeared when his friend the pianoforte-maker and publisher, Camille Pleyel, paid him 2,000 francs for the copyright of the Preludes, Op. 28.  Chopin remarked of this transaction to Gutmann, or in his hearing:  “I sold the Preludes to Pleyel because he liked them [parcequ’il les. aimait].”  And Pleyel exclaimed on one occasion:  “These are my Preludes [Ce sont mes Preludes].”  Gutmann thought that Pleyel, who was indebted to Chopin for playing on his instruments and recommending them, wished to assist his friend in a delicate way with some money, and therefore pretended to be greatly taken with these compositions and bent upon possessing them.  This, however, cannot be quite correct; for from Chopin’s letters, which I shall quote I presently, it appears that he had indeed promised Pleyel the Preludes, but before his departure received from him only 500 francs, the remaining 1,500 being paid months afterwards, on the delivery of the manuscript.  These letters show, on the other hand, that when Chopin was in Majorca he owed to Leo 1,000 francs, which very likely he borrowed from him to defray part of the expenses of his sojourn in the south.

[Footnote:  August Leo, a Paris banker, “the friend and patron of many artists,” as he is called by Moscheles, who was related to him through his wife Charlotte Embden, of Hamburg.  The name of Leo occurs often in the letters and conversations of musicians, especially German musicians, who visited Paris or lived there in the second quarter of this century.  Leo kept house together with his brother-in-law Valentin. (See Vol.  I., p. 254.)]