In the season 1832-1833 Chopin took his place as one of the acknowledged pianistic luminaries of the French capital, and began his activity as a professor par excellence of the aristocracy.  “His distinguished manners, his exquisite politeness, his studied and somewhat affected refinement in all things, made Chopin the model professor of the fashionable nobility.”  Thus Chopin is described by a contemporary.  Now he shall describe himself.  An undated letter addressed to his friend Dominic Dziewanowski, which, judging from an allusion to the death of the Princess Vaudemont, [footnote:  In a necrology contained in the Moniteur of January 6, 1833, she is praised for the justesse de son esprit, and described as naive et vraie comme une femme du peuple, genereuse comme une grande dame.  There we find it also recorded that she saved M. de Vitrolles pendant les Cent-jours, et M. de Lavalette sous la Restoration.] must have been written about the second week of January, 1833, gives much interesting information concerning the writer’s tastes and manners, the degree of success he had obtained, and the kind of life he was leading.  After some jocular remarks on his long silence—­remarks in which he alludes to recollections of Szafarnia and the sincerity of their friendship, and which he concludes with the statement that he is so much in demand on all sides as to betorn to pieces—­Chopin proceeds thus:—­

I move in the highest society—­among ambassadors, princes, and ministers; and I don’t know how I got there, for I did not thrust myself forward at all.  But for me this is at present an absolute necessity, for thence comes, as it were, good taste.  You are at once credited with more talent if you are heard at a soiree of the English or Austrian Ambassador’s.  Your playing is finer if the Princess Vaudemont patronises you.  “Patronises” I cannot properly say, for the good old woman died a week ago.  She was a lady who reminded me of the late Kasztelanowa Polaniecka, received at her house the whole Court, was very charitable, and gave refuge to many aristocrats in the days of terror of the first revolution.  She was the first who presented herself after the days of July at the Court of Louis Philippe, although she belonged to the Montmorency family (the elder branch), whose last descendant she was.  She had always a number of black and white pet dogs, canaries, and parrots about her; and possessed also a very droll little monkey, which was permitted even to...bite countesses and princesses.

Among the Paris artists I enjoy general esteem and friendship, although I have been here only a year.  A proof of this is that men of great reputation dedicate their compositions to me, and do so even before I have paid them the same compliment—­for instance, Pixis his last Variations for orchestra.  He is now even composing variations on a theme of mine.  Kalkbrenner improvises frequently on my mazurkas.  Pupils