Madame Sand's transgressions on this head, though few, have obtained great notoriety, on account of the extraordinary celebrity of two of the personages that suggested characters she has drawn. To the supposed originals, however obscure, the mortification is the same. But what often passes uncommented on when the individuals said to be traduced are unknown to fame, sets the whole world talking when one of the first musicians or poets of the century is involved; so that Madame Sand has incurred more censure than other novelists, though she has deserved it more rarely. But regret remains that for the sake of _Lucrezia Floriani_, one of the least pleasant though by no means the least powerful of her novels, she should have exposed herself to the charge of unkindness to one who had but a short while to live. Other causes had latterly been combining to lead to differences of which it would certainly be unfair to lay the whole blame on Madame Sand. The tie of personal attachment between Chopin and herself was not associated by identity of outward interests or even of cares and family affections, such as, in the case of husband and wife, make self-sacrifice possible under conditions which might otherwise be felt unbearable, and help to tide over crises of impatience or wrong. Madame Sand's children were now grown up; cross-influences could not but arise, hard to conciliate. Without accrediting Chopin with the self-absorption of Prince Karol, it is easy to see here, in a situation somewhat anomalous, elements of probable discord. It was impossible that he should any longer be a first consideration; impossible that he should not resent it. For some years his state of health had been getting worse and worse, and his nervous susceptibilities correspondingly intensified. Madame Sand betrayed some impatience at last of what she had long borne uncomplainingly, and their good understanding was broken. As was natural, the breach was the more severely felt by Chopin, but that it was of an irreparable nature, one is at liberty to doubt. He bitterly regretted what he had lost, for which not all the attentions showered on him by his well-wishers could afford compensation, as his letters attest. But outward circumstances prolonged the estrangement till it was too late. They met but once after the quarrel, and that was in company in March, 1848. Madame Sand would at once have made some approach, but Chopin did not then respond to the appeal; and the reconciliation both perhaps desired was never to take place. Political events had intervened to widen the gap between their paths. Chopin had neither part nor lot in the revolutionary movement that just then was throwing all minds and lives into a ferment, and which was completely to engross Madame Sand's energies for many months to come. It drove him away to England, and he only returned to Paris, in 1849, to die.