wished to be dressed before being laid in the coffin (indeed, some
people had their last habiliments prepared long before the approach of
their end); and the pious, more especially of the female sex, affected
conventual vestments, men generally preferring their official attire.
That Chopin chose for his grave-clothes his dress-suit, his official
attire, in which he presented himself to his audiences in concert-hall
and salon, cannot but be regarded as characteristic of the man, and is
perhaps more significant than appears at first sight. But I ought to
have said, it would be if it were true that Chopin really expressed the
wish. M. Kwiatkowski informed me that this was not so.

For some weeks after, from the 18th October onwards, the French press
occupied itself a good deal with the deceased musician. There was not, I
think, a single Paris paper of note which did not bring one or more long
articles or short notes regretting the loss, describing the end, and
estimating the man and artist. But the phenomenal ignorance, exuberance
of imagination, and audacity of statement, manifested by almost every
one of the writers of these articles and notes are sufficient to destroy
one's faith in journalism completely and for ever. Among the offenders
were men of great celebrity, chief among them Theophile Gautier
(Feuilleton de la Presse, November 5, 1849) and Jules Janin (Feuilleton
du Journal des Debuts, October 22, 1849), the latter's performance being
absolutely appalling. Indeed, if we must adjudge to French journalists
the palm for gracefulness and sprightliness, we cannot withhold it from
them for unconscientiousness. Some of the inventions of journalism, I
suspect, were subsequently accepted as facts, in some cases perhaps
even assimilated as items of their experience, by the friends of the
deceased, and finally found their way into AUTHENTIC biography. One
of these myths is that Chopin expressed the wish that Mozart's Requiem
should be performed at his funeral. Berlioz, one of the many journalists
who wrote at the time to this effect, adds (Feuilleton du Journal des
Debuts, October 27, 1849) that "His [Chopin's] worthy pupil received
this wish with his last sigh." Unfortunately for Berlioz and this pretty
story, Gutmann told me that Chopin did not express such a wish; and
Franchomme made to me the same statement. I must, [I must, however, not
omit to mention here that M. Charles Gavard says that Chopin drew up
the programme