as before
long promoted to the rank of captain. On the 5th of November, 1794, he
was on duty at Praga, and had not his company been relieved a few hours
before the fall of the suburb, he would certainly have met there his
death. Seeing that all was lost he again turned his thoughts homewards,
when once more sickness prevented him from executing his intention.
For a time he tried to make a living by teaching French, but ere long
accepted an engagement as tutor in the family--then living in the
country--of the Staroscina Laczynska, who meeting him by chance had been
favourably impressed by his manners and accomplishments. In passing we
may note that among his four pupils (two girls and two boys) was one,
Mary, who afterwards became notorious by her connection with Napoleon
I., and by the son that sprang from this connection, Count Walewski,
the minister of Napoleon III. At the beginning of this century we find
Nicholas Chopin at Zelazowa Wola, near Sochaczew, in the house of the
Countess Skarbek, as tutor to her son Frederick. It was there that he
made the acquaintance of Justina Krzyzanowska, a young lady of noble but
poor family, whom he married in the year 1806, and who became the mother
of four children, three daughters and one son, the latter being no other
than Frederick Chopin, the subject of this biography. The position of
Nicholas Chopin in the house of the Countess must have been a pleasant
one, for ever after there seems to have existed a friendly relation
between the two families. His pupil, Count Frederick Skarbek, who
prosecuted his studies at Warsaw and Paris, distinguished himself
subsequently as a poet, man of science, professor at the University
of Warsaw, state official, philanthropist, and many-sided author--more
especially as a politico--economical writer. When in his Memoirs the
Count looks back on his youth, he remembers gratefully and with respect
his tutor, speaking of him in highly appreciative terms. In teaching,
Nicholas Chopin's chief aim was to form his pupils into useful,
patriotic citizens; nothing was farther from his mind than the desire or
unconscious tendency to turn them into Frenchmen. And now approaches the
time when the principal personage makes his appearance on the stage.

Frederick Chopin, the only son and the third of the four children of
Nicholas and Justina Chopin, was born on February 22, 1810,

[FOOTNOTE: See Preface, p. xii. In the earlier editions the date given
was March