page_title: Nicolas Chopin
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Nicolas Chopin / Life
context_page_description: Nicolas Chopin was a teacher of French language in Prussian- and Russian-ruled Poland, and father of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin.
context_section_description: Nicolas Chopin was born in the village of Marainville-sur-Madon (Vosges department), in the province of Lorraine, France. He was the son of François Chopin (9 November 1738, Ambacourt – 31 January 1814, Marainville), a wheelwright and village administrator for Marainville, and Marguerite, née Deflin (1 February 1736, Diarville – 21 August 1794, Marainville), an educator respected by her colleagues and students. François and Marguerite were married on 17 January 1769.
  Nicolas had four sisters, only two of whom survived to adulthood: Anne (b. 23 November 1769, Marainville), who married Joseph Thomas on 13 February 1798, and Marguerite (5 August 1775, Marainville – 10 March 1845), who married Nicolas Bastien on 2 December 1798. Nicolas' godmother was his aunt Thérèse Lhumbert née Chopin, the half-sister of his father François.
  Nicolas graduated from the gymnasium at Tantimont, a nearby advanced secondary school dedicated to training youth for the teaching profession and the priesthood. As a village administrator, François Chopin was acquainted with Adam Jan Weydlich, the Polish-born estate administrator for Count Michał Jan Pac. Weydlich took an interest in the education of young Nicolas, teaching him the rudiments of the Polish language, while Weydlich's wife—a Parisian, Françoise-Nicole née Schelling—taught him French and German literature, music, etiquette, calligraphy, and accounting.
  In late 1787, after the death of Count Pac, Weydlich returned to Poland with his family, and he offered sixteen-year-old Nicolas the chance to come with him. Weydlich became the supervisor of a tobacco company (Manufaktura Tytoniowa w Warszawie) founded in 1777 by Jan Dekert, Piotr Blank (pl), and Andrzej Rafałowicz (pl). Nicolas worked at the factory, 1787–89, probably as an accounting clerk. Nicolas and the Weydlich family lived with Adam's brother, Franciszek Weydlich, in tenements of the Holy Cross Church on Krakowskie Przedmieście.
  Nicolas stayed there until 1792, working as Adam's personal assistant and possibly tutoring his children: Henryka (b. 1777) and Mikołaj (b. 1783). His friends from this period included Jakub Benik (24 July 1772 Dobre Miasto, Warmia – 20 January 1827 Warsaw) and Jan Austen (early 1774 Wilkie, Warmia – 6 May 1828 Warsaw), a professor at the Elementary School of Artillery and Engineering (Szkoła Elementarna Artylerii i Inżynierów) for the Army of the Duchy of Warsaw. There is one extant letter written by Nicolas to his parents during this time; in the letter, he explains that he does not want to return to France due to the French Revolution and the likelihood that he would be conscripted into the army.
  The year 1792 saw the Second Partition of Poland, and the tobacco factory was closed down. From 1792-1794, he resided in Szafarnia (Dobrzyń county) with Jan Dziewanowski as tutor and teacher to his son Jan Nepomucen Dziewanowski, who later became the godfather to Nicolas' daughter, Ludwika. During the 1794 outbreak of the Kościuszko Uprising, Nicolas joined the Warsaw municipal militia, rising to the rank of lieutenant.  After a year he was wounded, just as the uprising was collapsing.
  Finding himself again unemployed, he was soon engaged at Czerniewo, in Mazowsze Province, as tutor to the Łączyński family (one of whose daughters, Maria, after later marrying Anastazy Walewski, would gain fame as mistress to Napoleon Bonaparte).  Nicolas spent some six years with them.  Central and Eastern Europe were then flooded with refugees from areas affected by the revolution, and many of them found the same kind of employment as Nicolas.  On Polish lands, it became fashionable for even modestly well-to-do nobility to have a French aristocrat in their homes.  Nicolas was not "well-born," so his position bespoke the substantial education and social graces that he had acquired during his previous seven years among his adoptive Polish compatriots.
  Nicolas spent the next several years at Żelazowa Wola with Countess Ludwika Skarbek and her family (relatives of the Łączyńskis), tutoring the four children.  On 2 June 1806, he marr
caption: Justyna Chopin, née Krzyżanowska, wife of Nicolas and mother of Frédéric
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