George Sand tells us in the “Histoire de ma Vie” that Chopin found his rooms in the Rue Tronchet cold and damp, and felt sorely the separation from her.  The consequence of this was that the saintly woman, the sister of mercy, took, after some time, pity upon her suffering worshipper, and once more sacrificed herself.  Not to misrepresent her account, the only one we have, of this change in the domestic arrangements of the two friends, I shall faithfully transcribe her delicately-worded statements:—­

He again began to cough alarmingly, and I saw myself forced either to give in my resignation as nurse, or to pass my life in impossible journeyings to and fro.  He, in order to spare me these, came every day to tell me with a troubled face and a feeble voice that he was wonderfully well.  He asked if he might dine with us, and he went away in the evening, shivering in his cab.  Seeing how he took to heart his exclusion from our family life, I offered to let to him one of the pavilions, a part of which I could give up to him.  He joyfully accepted.  He had there his room, received there his friends, and gave there his lessons without incommoding me.  Maurice had the room above his; I occupied the other pavilion with my daughter.

Let us see if we cannot get some glimpses of the life in the pavilions of the Rue Pigalle, No. 16.  In the first months of 1840, George Sand was busy with preparations for the performance of her drama Cosima, moving heaven and earth to bring about the admission of her friend Madame Dorval into the company of the Theatre-Francais, where her piece, in which she wished this lady to take the principal part, was to be performed.  Her son Maurice passed his days in the studio of Eugene Delacroix; and Solange gave much time to her lessons, and lost much over her toilet.  Of Grzymala we hear that he is always in love with all the beautiful women, and rolls his big eyes at the tall Borgnotte and the little Jacqueline; and that Madame Marliani is always up to her ears in philosophy.  This I gathered from George Sand’s Correspondance, where, as the reader will see presently, more is to be found.

George Sand to Chopin; Cambrai, August 13, 1840:—­

I arrived at noon very tired, for it is 45 and 35 leagues from Paris to this place.  We shall relate to you good stories of the bourgeois of Cambrai.  They are beaux, they are stupid, they are shopkeepers; they are the sublime of the genre.  If the Historical Procession does not console us, we are capable of dying of ennui at the politeness which people show us.  We are lodged like princes.  But what hosts, what conversations, what dinners!  We laugh at them when we are by ourselves, but when we are before the enemy, what a pitiable figure we selves, make!  I am no longer desirous to see you come; but I aspire to depart very quickly, and I understand why you do not wish to give concerts.  It is not unlikely that Pauline Viardot may not sing the day after to-morrow, for want of a hall.  We shall, perhaps, leave a day sooner.  I wish I were already far away from the Cambresians, male and female.

  Good night!  I am going to bed, I am overcome with fatigue.