more especially Madame Nathaniel Rothschild preserved a touching remembrance of him [footnote:  Chopin dedicated to Madame la Baronne C. Rothschild the Waltz, Op. 64, No. 2 (Parisian Edition), and the Ballade, Op. 52.]—­they can have been but of small significance in comparison with the almost passionate attachment he had to Prince Alexander Czartoryski and his wife the Princess Marcelline.  And if we were to compare his friendship for any non-Polish gentleman or lady with that which he felt for the Countess Delphine Potocka, to whom he dedicated two of his happiest inspirations in two very different genres (the F minor Concerto, Op. 21, and the D flat major Waltz, Op. 64, No.  I), the result would be again in favour of his compatriot.  There were, indeed, some who thought that he felt more than friendship for this lady; this, however, he energetically denied.

[Footnote:  Of this lady Kwiatkowski said that she took as much trouble and pride in giving choice musical entertainments as other people did in giving choice dinners.  In Sowinski’s Musiciens polonais we read that she had a beautiful soprano voice and occupied the first place among the amateur ladies of Paris.  “A great friend of the illustrious Chopin, she gave formerly splendid concerts at her house with the old company of the Italians, which one shall see no more in Paris.  To cite the names of Rubini, Lablache, Tamburini, Malibran, Grisi, Persiani, is to give the highest idea of Italian singing.  The Countess Potocka sang herself according to the method of the Italian masters.”]

But although Chopin was more devoted and more happy in his Polish friendships, he had beloved as well as loving friends of all nationalities—­Germans, English, and even Russians.  That as a good Pole he hated the Russians as a nation may be taken for granted.  Of his feelings and opinions with regard to his English friends and the English in general, information will be forthcoming in a subsequent chapter.  The Germans Chopin disliked thoroughly, partly, no doubt, from political reasons, partly perhaps on account of their inelegance and social awkwardness.  Still, of this nation were some of his best friends, among them Hiller, Gutmann, Albrecht, and the Hanoverian ambassador Baron von Stockhausen.

[Footnote:  Gutmann, in speaking to me of his master’s dislike, positively ascribed it to the second of the above causes.  In connection with this we must, however, not forget that the Germans of to-day differ from the Germans of fifty years ago as much socially as politically.  Nor have the social characters of their neighbours, the French and the English, remained the same.]