Chopin’s surroundings at Pere-Lachaise are most congenial.  Indeed, the neighbourhood forms quite a galaxy of musical talent--close by lie Cherubini, Bellini, Gretry, Boieldieu, Bocquillon-Wilhem, Louis Duport, and several of the Erard family; farther away, Ignace Pleyel, Rodolphe Kreutzer, Pierre Galin, Auguste Panseron, Mehul, and Paer.  Some of these, however, had not yet at that time taken possession of their resting-places there, and Bellini has since then (September 15, 1876) been removed by his compatriots, to his birthplace, Catania, in Sicily.

Not the whole of Chopin’s body, however, was buried at Pere-Lachaise; his heart was conveyed to his native country and is preserved in the Holy Cross Church at Warsaw, where at the end of 1879 or beginning of 1880 a monument was erected, consisting of a marble bust of the composer in a marble niche.  Soon after Chopin’s death voluntary contributions were collected, and a committee under Delacroix’s presidence was formed, for the erection of a monument, the execution of which was entrusted to Clesinger, the husband of Madame Sand’s daughter, Solange.  Although the sculptor’s general idea is good—­a pedestal bearing on its front a medallion, and surmounted by a mourning muse with a neglected lyre in her hand—­the realisation leaves much to be desired.  This monument was unveiled in October, 1850, on the anniversary of Chopin’s death.

[Footnote:  On the pedestal of the monument are to be read besides the words “A.  Frederic Chopin” above the medallion, “Ses amis” under the medallion, and the name of the sculptor and the year of its production (J.  Clesinger, 1850), the following incorrect biographical data:  “Frederic Chopin, ne en Pologne a Zelazowa Wola pres de Varsovie:  Fils d’un emigre francais, marie a Mile.  Krzyzanowska, fille d’un gentilhomme Polonais.]

The friends of the composer, as we learn from an account in John Bull (October 26, 1850), assembled in the little chapel of Pere-Lachaise, and after a religious service proceeded with the officiating priest at their head to Chopin’s grave.  The monument was then unveiled, flowers and garlands were scattered over and around it, prayers were said, and M. Wolowski, the deputy, [footnote:  Louis Francois Michel Raymond Wolowski, political economist, member of the Academie des Sciences Morales, and member of the Constituante.  A Pole by birth, he became a naturalised French subject in 1834.] endeavoured to make a speech, but was so much moved that he could only say a few words.

[Footnote:  In the Gazette muticale of October 20, 1850, we read:  “Une messe commemorative a ete dite jeudi dernier [i.e., on the 17th] dans la chapelle du cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise a la memoire de Frederic Chopin et pour l’inauguration de son monument funebre.”]

The Menestrel of November 3, 1850, informed its readers that in the course of the week (it was on the 3Oth October at eleven o’clock) an anniversary mass had been celebrated at the Madeleine in honour of Chopin, at which from two to three hundred of his friends were present, and that Franchomme on the violoncello and Lefebure-Wely on the organ had played some of the departed master’s preludes, or, to quote our authority literally, “ont redit aux assistants emus les preludes si pleins de melancolie de I’illustre defunt.”