Thus far we have followed the standard authorities, but the year 1903 has done much in the way of unveiling Chopin's life. His letters to his family, and their letters to him, were believed to have perished. They were in the possession of his sister Isabella Barcinska, and she was living in the palace of Count Zamoyski at Warsaw, in 1863, when a bomb was thrown from a window as the Russian lieutenant-general was passing. In revenge the soldiers sacked the palace, and burned what they did not carry off. Chopin's portrait by Ary Scheffer, his piano, and his Paris furniture perished, and his papers were believed to be among the lost. But all the while the family was keeping their very existence secret until, after forty years, it was thought proper to give them to the public. M. Karlovicz was entrusted with this honour, and _La Revue Musicale_ of Paris chosen as the medium. The letters are said to make a large bulk, but I have been able to see only the first three instalments, of which two are family letters to him. They are exuberant with tenderness, admiration, and of hope for his great fame; the father constantly pleading with the son to lay up his sous against a rainy day,--advice which met the usual fate of good advice. Karlovicz says, with some exaggeration: "In his letters to his family, Chopin, as if he wished to avoid pronouncing the name of George Sand, always calls her 'My hostess,' sometimes even employing, strange to say, the plural, for instance, 'Elles si chères, elles rirent pour tous,' or, 'Here the vigil is sad, because _les malades_ do not wish a doctor.'" The first letter, signed "Fritz," is a most cordial welcome to a man about to marry his sister. The third is a double letter from George Sand and Chopin to Louise, who had just visited the two lovers at Nohant in 1844. Sand tells her that her visit has been the best tonic he has ever had, and writes to the whole family: "Tell them all that I love them, too, and would give my life to unite them with him one day under my roof." Chopin refers to Sand as "My hostess," and signs himself "Ton vieux." In his next he details with much amusement a scandalous escapade of Victor Hugo's, a husband's discovery, and Madame Hugo's forgiving manner. He announces (July 20, 1845) that "le télégraphe électro-magnétique entre Baltimore et Washington, donne des resultats extraordinaires." He revels in puns and gossip. Karlovicz mentions the existence of a despairing letter in which Chopin called his sister Louise to Paris where he was dying; she came in 1849, with her husband and daughter, and remained till the end, giving him the last tendernesses in her power.