to sing beside the bed where her friend was exhaling his life.  I, for my part, heard nothing; I do not know what she sang.  This scene, this contrast, this excess of grief had over-powered my-sensibility; I remember only the moment when the death-rattle of the departing one interrupted the Countess in the middle of the second piece.  The instrument was quickly removed, and beside the bed remained only the priest who said the prayers for the dying, and the kneeling friends around him.

However, the end was not yet come, indeed, was not to come till two days after.  M. Gavard, in saying that he did not hear what the Countess Potocka sang, acts wisely, for those who pretended to have heard it contradict each other outright.  Liszt and Karasowski, who follows him, say that the Countess sang the Hymn to the Virgin by Stradella, and a Psalm by Marcello; on the other hand, Gutmann most positively asserted that she sang a Psalm by Marcello and an air by Pergolesi; whereas Franchomme insisted on her having sung an air from Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, and that only once, and nothing else.  As Liszt was not himself present, and does not give the authority for his statement, we may set it, and with it Karasowski’s, aside; but the two other statements, made as they were by two musicians who were ear witnesses, leave us in distressing perplexity with regard to what really took place, for between them we cannot choose.  Chopin, says M. Gavard, looked forward to his death with serenity.

Some days after his removal to the Place Vendome, Chopin, sitting upright and leaning on the arm of a friend, remained silent for a long time and seemed lost in deep meditation.  Suddenly he broke the silence with the words:  “Now my death- struggle begins” [Maintenant j’entre en agonie].  The physician, who was feeling his pulse, wished to comfort him with some commonplace words of hope.  But Chopin rejoined with a superiority which admitted of no reply:  “God shows man a rare favour when He reveals to him the moment of the approach of death; this grace He shows me.  Do not disturb me.”

M. Gavard relates also that on the 16th October Chopin twice called his friends that were gathered in his apartments around him.  “For everyone he had a touching word; I, for my part, shall never forget the tender words he spoke to me.”  Calling to his side the Princess Czartoryska and Mdlle.  Gavard, [footnote:  A sister of M. Charles Gavard, the pupil to whom Chopin dedicated his Berceuse.] he said to them:  “You will play together, you will think of me, and I shall listen to you.”  And calling to his side Franchomme, he said to the Princess:  “I recommend Franchomme to you, you will play Mozart together, and I shall listen to you.” [Footnote:  The words are usually reported to have been “Vous jouerez du Mozart en memoire de moi.”] “And,” added Franchomme when he told me this, “the Princess has always been a good friend to me.”