a-Vestris, in April,
1831, he appeared, and in June gave a concert of his own, at which he
must have played the E minor concerto, because of a passing mention in
a musical paper. He studied much, and it was July 20, 1831, before he
left Vienna after a second, last, and thoroughly discouraging visit.

Chopin got a passport vised for London, "passant par Paris &. Londres,"
and had permission from the Russian Ambassador to go as far as Munich.
Then the cholera gave him some bother, as he had to secure a clean bill
of health, but he finally got away. The romantic story of "I am only
passing through Paris," which he is reported to have said in after
years, has been ruthlessly shorn of its sentiment. At Munich he played
his second concerto and pleased greatly. But he did not remain in the
Bavarian capital, hastening to Stuttgart, where he heard of the capture
of Warsaw by the Russians, September 8, 1831. This news, it is said,
was the genesis of the great C minor etude in opus 10, sometimes called
the "Revolutionary." Chopin exclaimed in a letter dated December 16,
1831, "All this caused me much pain--who could have foreseen it!" and
in another letter he wrote, "How glad my mamma will be that I did not
go back." Count Tarnowski in his recollections prints some extracts
from a diary said to have been kept by Chopin. According to this his
agitation must have been terrible. Here are several examples:

"My poor father! My dearest ones! Perhaps they hunger? Maybe he has not
anything to buy bread for mother? Perhaps my sisters have fallen
victims to the fury of the Muscovite soldiers? Oh, father, is this the
consolation of your old age? Mother, poor suffering mother, is it for
this you outlived your daughter?"

"And I here unoccupied! And I am here with empty hands! Sometimes I
groan, suffer and despair at the piano! O God, move the earth, that it
may swallow the humanity of this century! May the most cruel fortune
fall upon the French, that they did not come to our aid." All this
sounds a trifle melodramatic and quite unlike Chopin.

He did not go to Warsaw, but started for France at the end of
September, arriving early in October, 1831. Poland's downfall had
aroused him from his apathy, even if it sent him further from her. This
journey, as Liszt declares, "settled his fate." Chopin was twenty-two
years old when he reached Paris.

II. PARIS:--IN THE MAELSTROM

Here, according to Niecks, is the itinerary of Chopin's