of the Duke (the philosophe
bienfaisant) himself, and of the strange land and people he came from.
But Stanislas, besides being an excellent prince, was also an amiable,
generous gentleman, who, whilst paying due attention to the well-being
of his new subjects, remained to the end of his days a true Pole. From
this circumstance it may be easily inferred that the Court of Stanislas
proved a great attraction to his countrymen, and that Nancy became a
chief halting-place of Polish travellers on their way to and from Paris.
Of course, not all the Poles that had settled in the Duchies during the
Duke's reign left the country after his demise, nor did their friends
from the fatherland altogether cease to visit them in their new home.
Thus a connection between the two countries was kept up, and the
interest taken by the people of the west in the fortunes of the people
in the east was not allowed to die. Moreover, were not the Academie de
Stanislas founded by the Duke, the monument erected to his memory, and
the square named after him, perpetual reminders to the inhabitants of
Nancy and the visitors to that town?

Nicholas Chopin came to Warsaw in or about the year 1787. Karasowski
relates in the first and the second German edition of his biography of
Frederick Chopin that the Staroscina [FOOTNOTE: The wife of a starosta
(vide p. 7.)] Laczynska made the acquaintance of the latter's father,
and engaged him as tutor to her children; but in the later Polish
edition he abandons this account in favour of one given by Count
Frederick Skarbek in his Pamietniki (Memoirs). According to this most
trustworthy of procurable witnesses (why he is the most trustworthy will
be seen presently), Nicholas Chopin's migration to Poland came about
in this way. A Frenchman had established in Warsaw a manufactory of
tobacco, which, as the taking of snuff was then becoming more and more
the fashion, began to flourish in so high a degree that he felt the
need of assistance. He proposed, therefore, to his countryman, Nicholas
Chopin, to come to him and take in hand the book-keeping, a proposal
which was readily accepted.

The first impression of the young Lorrainer on entering the land of
his dreams cannot have been altogether of a pleasant nature. For in the
summer of 1812, when, we are told, the condition of the people had been
infinitely ameliorated by the Prussian and Russian governments, M.
de Pradt, Napoleon's ambassador, found the nation in a st