Perhaps you may manage to come here.  I am not egotistic enough to ask you to come only on my account; for, as I am ill, you would have with me weary hours and disappointments, but, perhaps, also hours of comfort, and of beautiful reminiscences of our youth, and I wish only that our time together may be a time of happiness.—­Yours ever,

          Frederick.

When Chopin wrote the second of the above letters he was staying in a part of Paris more suitable for summer quarters than the Square d’Orleans—­namely, in the Rue Chaillot, whither he had removed in the end of August.

The Rue Chaillot [writes M. Charles Gavard] was then a very quiet street, where one thought one’s self rather in the province than in the capital.  A large court-yard led to Chopin’s apartments on the second story and with a view of Paris, which can be seen from the height of Chaillot.

The friends who found these apartments for the invalid composer made him believe that the rent was only 200 francs.  But in reality it was 400 francs, and a Russian lady, Countess Obreskoff, [footnote:  Madame Rubio, differing in this one particular from Franchomme, said that Chopin paid 100 francs and Countess Obreskoff 200.] paid one half of it.  When Chopin expressed surprise at the lowness of the rent, he was told that lodgings were cheap in summer.

This last story prompts me to say a few words about Chopin’s pecuniary circumstances, and naturally leads me to another story, one more like romance than reality.  Chopin was a bad manager, or rather he was no manager at all.  He spent inconsiderately, and neglecting to adapt his expenditure to his income, he was again and again under the necessity of adapting his income to his expenditure.  Hence those borrowings of money from friends, those higglings with and dunnings of publishers, in short, all those meannesses which were unworthy of so distinguished an artist, and irreconcilable with his character of grand seigneur.  Chopin’s income was more than sufficient to provide him with all reasonable comforts; but he spent money like a giddy-headed, capricious woman, and unfortunately for him had not a fond father or husband to pay the debts thus incurred.  Knowing in what an unsatisfactory state his financial affairs were when he was earning money by teaching and publishing, we can have no difficulty in imagining into what straits he must have been driven by the absolute cessation of work and the consequent cessation of income.  The little he had saved in England and Scotland was soon gone, gone unawares; indeed, the discovery of the fact came to him as a surprise.  What was to be done?  Franchomme, his right hand, and his head too, in business and money matters—­and now, of course, more than ever—­was at his wits’ end.  He discussed the disquieting, threatening problem with some friends of Chopin, and through one of them the composer’s destitution came to the knowledge