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 1,1809, as in the biography by Karasowski, with
whom agree the earlier J. Fontana (Preface to Chopin's posthumous
works.--1855), C. Sowinski (Les musiciens polonais et slaves.--
1857), and the writer of the Chopin article in Mendel's
Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon (1872). According to M. A.
Szulc (Fryderyk Chopin.--1873) and the inscription on the
memorial (erected in 1880) in the Holy Cross Church at Warsaw,
the composer was born on March 2, 1809. The monument in Pere
Lachaise, at Paris, bears the date of Chopin's death, but not
that of his birth. Felis, in his Biographie universelle des
musiciens, differs widely from these authorities. The first
edition (1835--1844) has only the year--1810; the second edition
(1861--1865) adds month and day--February 8.]

in a mean little house at Zelazowa Wola, a village about twenty-
eight English miles from Warsaw belonging to the Countess
Skarbek.