is at
that time possessed a much run-after clairvoyant, the celebrated Alexis;
they thought of going to consult him. But to get some information it was
necessary to put him en rapport, directly or indirectly, with the person
suspected. Now this person was, naturally, the portiere. By ruse or by
address they got hold of a little scarf that she wore round her neck
and placed it in the hands of the clairvoyant. The latter unhesitatingly
declared that the 25,000 francs were behind the looking-glass in the
loge. The friend who had brought them immediately presented himself
to claim them; and our careful portiere, fearing, no doubt, the
consequences of a too prolonged sequestration, drew the packet from
behind the clock and held it out to him, saying: 'Eh bien, la v'la, vot'
lettre!'"]

Chopin, however, refused to accept the whole of the 25,000 francs.
According to Madame Rubio, he kept only 1,000 francs, returning the rest
to Miss Stirling, whilst Franchomme, on the other hand, said that his
friend kept 12,000 francs.

During Chopin's short stay in the Rue Chaillot, M. Charles Gavard, then
a very young man, in fact, a youth, spent much of his time with the
suffering composer:--

The invalid [he writes] avoided everything that could make me
sad, and, to shorten the hours which we passed together,
generally begged me to take a book out of his library and to
read to him. For the most part he chose some pages out of
Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique. He valued very highly
the finished form of that clear and concise language, and that
so sure judgment on questions of taste. Thus, for instance, I
remember that the article on taste was one of the last I read
to him.

What M. Gavard says of how slowly, in pain, and often in loneliness, the
hours passed for Chopin in the spacious, rooms of his lodgings in the
Rue Chaillot, reminds me of a passage in Hector Berlioz's admirable
article on his friend in the Journal des Debats (October 27, 1849):--

His weakness and his sufferings had become so great that he
could no longer either play the piano or compose; even the
slightest conversation fatigued him in an alarming manner. He
endeavoured generally to make himself understood as far as
possible by signs. Hence the kind of isolation in which he
wished to pass the last months of his life, an isolation which
many people wrongly interpreted--some attributing it to a
scornful pride, others to a mel