Tag: Classical Music

On a Smuggler

Ludwika (Louise) Jędrzejewicz was a most unlikely smuggler.

The daughter of a proper Polish family, Ludwika was born in 1808 in Warsaw. Her father was a Frenchman who had emigrated to Russian-controlled Poland some years earlier as a businessman and tutor in French. She and her siblings grew up being multi-lingual, and Ludwika had a relatively privileged upbringing compared to most young girls her age. Czarist Russia had control over Poland at that time, and the Polish people desperately wanted independence from their Russian overlords. At the same time, Russia worked hard to keep efforts at Polish independence and patriotic expressions among the Polish people to a minimum.

Ludwika became a musician and composer, something that was unusual for a woman in that time and place. Her music was unique and well-received; the Poles pointed to it as an example of the quality of Polish culture and creativity. She and one of her siblings, a sister, wrote anonymous pro-Polish propaganda against the Russians, too. She supported organizations that advocated Polish nationalism. In 1832, Ludwika married a lawyer, a man named Józef Jędrzejewicz. Even though the marriage produced a child, it was an unhappy pairing.

Then, in the summer of 1849, Ludwika received a letter from her younger brother, Frederic. He had moved to France to work on his own music career, and he was in poor health. He asked if his older sis could come help him, nurse him back to heath, and, maybe, help him return to Poland and the family. Ludwika agreed, much to her husband’s chagrin. Józef accused her of putting her birth family before her own child and marriage, but she ignored his complaints and went to Frederic. She nursed her brother and cared for him as best as she could, but the man had tuberculosis. He had always been thin and frail, and his body was not able to fight off the illness. He died that autumn in Paris, his loyal and loving sister at his side. However, before he died, Frederic asked his sister for a favor. He wanted her to smuggle something into Poland for him. “Take it to the church,” he said to her in one of his last sentences before his death. “Promise me,” he said. Through her tears, his devoted sister promised. Frederic was buried in Paris, and Ludwika began making her plans to return home to Poland.

By this time, Józef had left her, fed up with her loyalty to her brother. So, with literally nowhere else to go, she decided to return home to her mother’s house near Warsaw. But she still wanted to honor the departed Frederic’s wish to return “home” the item he made her promise to give to the church. And to do so, Ludwika had to smuggle the item past not only the Russian border and customs authorities, but she also had to smuggle it past the guards at the Austro-Hungarian border as well. So, she did what any decent, self-respecting woman would do. She hid the item under her dress. Surely, no customs official would search a lady’s person, even someone as rude as a Russian border guard.

And she was proved right. Her voluminous skirts proved a perfect hideout for smuggling the item back into Poland. After sitting on her mother’s fireplace mantel for a time, Frederic’s item was given to the Warsaw’s Holy Cross Church. Ludwika would mirror her brother and die young from a disease in 1855. But she felt that she had shown honor to Frederic by keeping her promise. The item she gave to the church in Warsaw is still there today, and it occupies a prominent place in the building, where it has been a national treasure ever since. It has survived revolutions, two world wars, and several occupations. And it stands as a monument not only to Frederic and his sister, but it also represents the patriotic spirit of the Polish nation. You see, Ludwika’s maiden name was Chopin. Her brother, Frederic Chopin is today one of history’s greatest composers and a Polish national hero.

And the item he had his sister smuggle into Poland, the item that is the pride of the Holy Cross Church is Frederic Chopin’s heart.

On a Court Visitor

We forget that the concept of European royalty having almost absolute political and economic power over their subjects was a thing as recently as about 200 years ago. The revolutions of the 1840s put an end to most of the period of powerful reigns of the kings and queens in Europe. One of the most powerful courts was that of the Hapsburgs, and they last ruled in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. You probably know more about them than you realize, including the fact that one of the most famous products of that powerful royal family was Marie Antionette, the Queen of France, who, along with her husband Louis, was beheaded on the guillotine during the French Revolution.

Marie grew up in Vienna, at the royal palaces including the large one at Schonbrunn and the palace at Hofburg. She was the 15th child of her parents, the Emperor Ferdinand and his wife, Maria Theresa. Marie, of course, would grow up to be the poster person for upper class snobbery and disaffectedness. The quote attributed to her, “let them eat cake,” supposedly said about starving French citizens who had no bread, was less about her lack of care and more about how she was raised. It never occurred to her that people would run out of bread, of course, and, if they did, well, surely they could then eat cake–because she had never done without. That gives you the idea of how isolated from how the average, common person lived that Marie’s upbringing was. And that’s why it’s surprising to find that the royal family entertained two commoners at the palace when Marie was a young girl.

This young boy was about Marie’s age, actually. He and his father had an audience at the palace at the order of Marie’s mother, Empress Maria Theresa. The man and the boy, only aged 7, came to entertain the Empress and some of her children. It was noticed immediately that the boy and Princess Marie were of similar age and size. The story goes that, during his time in the palace, the boy slipped and fell on the highly polished floor. Marie, being polite, bent down and helped the boy up. In his gratitude, the common boy is said to have said to the princess, “Will you marry me? Yes or no?” Marie was stunned and also amused. She asked him why he would ask her that. He replied, “Because you were so nice to me.” Marie is said to have giggled, and the adults thought that the scene between the two seven year olds was sweet.

While we don’t know if that event actually happened (it was told about Marie in later years), we do have written evidence that the young man did take some liberties to some degree, especially for someone who was not a member of the royal family. It seems that he climbed up into the lap of Empress Maria Theresa. His father was mortified. This was embarrassing and unseemly and an affront to the majesty of the wife of the emperor of that part of the world. But, the empress was kind and loving to the boy. She not only hugged the brash youngster, she allowed this common boy to give her a kiss on her cheek.

Later, after the father and son left the palace, Maria Theresa sent a gift to this 7 year old boy as a token of her kindness towards the family. She had some of the slightly used but incredibly expensive silk clothes of one of her sons sent to the boy. Also, the gift was in appreciation for the musical entertainment that the boy and his father provided for the court, Maria Theresa, and her young children. Of course, the real star of the recital was the 7 year old; the father, his teacher, was there to assist his musically gifted son.

And that’s how, possibly, that Marie Antoinette came to receive a proposal of marriage from a young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.