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Each succeeding biographer of the great composer has sought to tell us a little more about her yet little is known of her even now beyond the fact that she was very beautiful and so eager have we been for a glimpse of her face that we have accepted without reserve as an authentic presentment of her features the famous portrait of a Countess Potocka who, I find, died some seven or eight years before Delphine and Chopin met.
O'Meara, many Polish ladies of rank, Delphine Potocka among the rest, Madame Streicher, Carl Mikuli, Madame Rubio, Madame Peruzzi, Thomas Tellefsen, Casimir Wernik, Gustav Schumann, Werner Steinbrecher, and many others became excellent pianists. Was the American pianist, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, ever his pupil? His friends say so, but Niecks does not mention him. Ernst Pauer questions it.
Probably the public, which clings to romance, still will cling to the pastel portrait of Countess Potocka as that of the woman who sang to the dying Chopin and so the portrait is reproduced here. Barrias, the French historical painter, who was in Paris when Chopin lived there, painted "The Death of Chopin." It shows Delphine singing to the dying man.
He was intimate in the house of Prince Czartoryski, of the Countess Plater, of Madame de Komar, and in that of her daughters, the Princess de Beauveau and the Countess Delphine Potocka, whose beauty, together with her indescribable and spiritual grace, made her one of the most admired sovereigns of the society of Paris.
Le Brun, always hard at work and always having great anxieties, at length found herself so broken in health, and so nervously fatigued that she longed to be alone with Nature, and in 1808 she went to Switzerland. Her letters written to the Countess Potocka at this time are added to her "Souvenirs," and reveal the very best of her nature.
Dependent upon women to the last! But even the story of her visit is denied. Turgeniev said that fifty countesses had claimed that he died in their arms. Among the number was the Countess Potocka, who is cherished traditionally as one of Chopin's loves, and who was much with him during his last days, and sang for him, at his request, as he lay dying.
Chopin died, October 17, 1849, between three and four in the morning, after having been shrived by the Abbe Jelowicki. His last word, according to Gavard, was "Plus," on being asked if he suffered. Regarding the touching and slightly melodramatic death bed scene on the day previous, when Delphine Potocka sang Stradella and Mozart or was it Marcello? Liszt, Karasowski, and Gutmann disagree.
The description of the last days of poor Chopin's melancholy life, with the untiring devotion of those around him, including the beautiful countess, Delphine Potocka; his cherished sister, Louise; his devoted friend and pupil, M. Gutman, with the great Liszt himself, is full of tragic interest.
M. Gutman and his sister were in constant attendance upon him, never for a single moment leaving him. The Countess Delphine Potocka, who was then absent from Paris, returned as soon as she was informed of his imminent danger. None of those who approached the dying artist, could tear themselves from the spectacle of this great and gifted soul in its hours of mortal anguish.
The château, now the property of Countess Potoçka, is full of historical portraits, objects of art, and other curiosities, of which the most interesting is the magnificent suit of armour presented by the Pope to Sobieski in memory of his great victory. The apartments of his beautiful consort are of great elegance.
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