was according to the editor of the Correspondance a cousin of George Sand’s; George Sand herself calls her in Ma Vie her parent, and tells us in a vague way how her connection with this young lady gave occasion to scandalous libels.]

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.

You have understood, Desirez and you, you whose soul is delicate because it is ardent, that I passed through the gravest and most painful phase of my life.  I nearly succumbed, although I had foreseen it for a long time.  But you know one is not always under the pressure of a sinister foresight, however evident it may be.  There are days, weeks, entire months even, when one lives on illusions, and when one flatters one’s self one is turning aside the blow which threatens one.  At last, the most probable misfortune always surprises us disarmed and unprepared.  In addition to this development of the unhappy germ, which was going on unnoticed, there have arisen several very bitter and altogether unexpected accessory circumstances.  The result is that I am broken in soul and body with chagrin.  I believe that this chagrin is incurable; for the better I succeed in freeing myself from it for some hours, the more sombre and poignant does it re-enter into me in the following hours...I have undertaken a lengthy work [un ouvrage de longue haleine] entitled Histoire de ma Vie...However, I shall not reveal the whole of my life...It will be, moreover, a pretty good piece of business, which will put me on my feet again, and will relieve me of a part of my anxieties with regard to the future of Solange, which is rather compromised.

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.