Twilight: 1845–9.

George Sand's son, Maurice, was aged 22 in 1845, and increasingly resented Chopin's place in his mother's affections. Her daughter Solange, on the other hand, spent more and more time with Chopin. She was a fickle, not to say rebellious, teenager, a real problem for her mother, and it seems that Chopin was inclined to spoil her. The conditions were exactly right for a major family war, and the first skirmish took place in the summer of 1845. The catalyst was Augustine Brault, a distant cousin who had in effect been adopted by Sand earlier in the year. Solange, who was jealous of the girl, accused Maurice of seducing her, and Chopin sided with Solange. He was quickly told to mind his own business by Maurice, and effectively by Sand herself. Things eventually quietened down, and a temporary truce was established. But shortly the whole of literary Paris was made aware of Sand's exasperation with Chopin and of her loss of faith in the relationship. Her novel Lucrezia Floriani, published in instalments during 1846, was blatantly autobiographical and far from flattering to Chopin: ‘He [the central character] would be supercilious, haughty, precious, and distant. He would seem to nibble lightly enough, but would wound deeply, penetrating right to the soul. Or, if he lacked the courage to argue and mock, he would withdraw in lofty silence, sulking in a pathetic manner’. With hindsight it is difficult not to read the novel as a kind of post-mortem of their relationship.

Soon the real war began. In autumn 1846 Solange became engaged to a young landowner from Berry, Fernand de Pré aulx, and the match was approved by both Sand and Chopin. A few months later, on 26 February 1847, she cancelled the engagement, having succumbed to the advances of a young sculptor, Auguste Clé singer. It was apparent to Chopin (and also to Delacroix, who spent much time with the family at this point) that Clé singer was an unscrupulous character, and specifically a fortune-hunter. In April the young man pursued Solange to Nohant (while Chopin was in Paris), and scenes of considerable confusion resulted, with Solange at one point plunging herself into an icy stream because she feared pregnancy. In the end the marriage was just about forced on Sand, but she proceeded without informing Chopin. Moreover when Clé singer discovered that his financial difficulties were not going to be instantly resolved by George Sand he caused extraordinary and violent scenes at Nohant, culminating in his and Solange's expulsion from the family home. Chopin's subsequent contacts with the Clé singers were viewed by Sand as a betrayal, while he in his turn refused to ‘give up’ Solange. Angry letters were written, and the outcome was, as Sand put it, ‘a strange conclusion to nine years of exclusive friendship’.

Chopin never really recovered from this. His teaching round continued, of course, and he was even persuaded to give a public concert at the Salle Pleyel (the last three movements of the Cello Sonata op.65, with his close friend Franchomme). But before any semblance of normality could be restored in his life politics intervened in the shape of the February revolution of 1848. The reality of these events was for Chopin something to be avoided at all costs, and the means to do so were provided by his devoted Scottish pupil Jane Stirling. By April he was in London, where he gave several concerts and made his way (as usual) into the highest strata of society. He was far from at ease there, however. His health was sinking fast, he was making very little money and, above all, he was finding the attentions of Stirling and her relatives wearing in the extreme. ‘They want me to go and see all their friends, whereas it is as much as I can do to keep body and soul together’. In August he was in Scotland, where the social round was even more tiring, and his consumption tightened its grip. ‘Often in the mornings I think I will cough myself to death’, he wrote to Grzymał a. ‘I am miserable at heart, but I try to deaden my feelings’. Increasingly his thoughts turned to Poland and to absent friends, and only a brief visit from his pupil Princess Marcelina Czartoryska succeeded in leavening a gloomy Scottish autumn.

It became increasingly clear that Stirling hoped to replace George Sand in Chopin's affections, though anything less amenable to Chopin would have been hard to find. He spoke the simple truth when he remarked that he was ‘closer to a coffin than a marriage bed’. When he returned to London in October he weighed less than 45 kg, and although he managed one final concert for the Friends of Poland, his doctors were well aware that he was in the terminal stages of his illness and recommended that he return to Paris as soon as possible. He was well looked after during those final months in Paris. Friends rallied round, Jane Stirling offered financial help and in August his sister Ludwika arrived with her husband and daughter, providing just the family atmosphere that Chopin craved. As the word quickly spread that he was dying, friends and acquaintances gathered constantly in his new rooms in the Place Vendô me. Pauline Viardot remarked cynically that ‘all the grand Parisian ladies considered it de rigueur to faint in his room.’ Then, on 12 October, Alexander Jelowicki, an acquaintance from Warsaw days, who had since taken orders, persuaded him to partake of the last sacrament. Five days later, in the presence of Solange and his pupil Adolphe Gutmann, Chopin died.

Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek