8, 1839, to her friend Francois Rollinat, which contains interesting
details concerning Chopin in the last scenes of the Majorca intermezzo,
may fitly conclude this chapter.

Chopin got worse and worse, and in spite of all offers of
service which were made to us in the Spanish manner, we should
not have found a hospitable house in all the island. At last
we resolved to depart at any price, although Chopin had not
the strength to drag himself along. We asked only one--a first
and a last service--a carriage to convey him to Palma, where
we wished to embark. This service was refused to us, although
our FRIENDS had all equipages and fortunes to correspond. We
were obliged to travel three leagues on the worst roads in a
birlocho [FOOTNOTE: A cabriolet. In a Spainish Dictionary I
find a birlocho defined as a vehicle open in front, with two
seats, and two or four wheels. A more detailed description is
to be found on p. 101 of George Sand's "Un Hiver a
Marjorque."] that is to say, a brouette.

On arriving at Palma, Chopin had a frightful spitting of
blood; we embarked the following day on the only steamboat of
the island, which serves to transport pigs to Barcelona. There
is no other way of leaving this cursed country. We were in
company of 100 pigs, whose continual cries and foul odour left
our patient no rest and no respirable air. He arrived at
Barcelona still spitting basins full of blood, and crawling
along like a ghost. There, happily, our misfortunes were
mitigated! The French consul and the commandant of the French
maritime station received us with a hospitality and grace
which one does not know in Spain. We were brought on board a
fine brig of war, the doctor of which, an honest and worthy
man, came at once to the assistance of the invalid, and
stopped the hemorrhage of the lung within twenty-four hours.

From that moment he got better and better. The consul had us
driven in his carriage to an hotel. Chopin rested there a
week, at the end of which the same vessel which had conveyed
us to Spain brought us back to France. When we left the hotel
at Barcelona the landlord wished to make us pay for the bed in
which Chopin had slept, under the pretext that it had been
infected, and that the police regulations obliged him to burn
it.

Chapter XXII.

STAY AT MARSEILLES (FROM MARCH TO MAY, 1839) AS DESCRIBED IN CHOPIN'S
AND MADAME SAND'S