14 Facts About Nicolas Chopin

Nicolas Chopin was a teacher of the French language in Partitioned Poland, and father of Polish composer Frederic Chopin.

Nicolas Chopin was born in the village of Marainville-sur-Madon, in the province of Lorraine, France.

Nicolas Chopin was the son of Francois Chopin, a wheelwright and village administrator for Marainville, and Marguerite, nee Deflin, an educator respected by her colleagues and students.

Nicolas Chopin graduated from the gymnasium at Tantimont, a nearby advanced secondary school dedicated to training youth for the teaching profession and the priesthood.

Nicolas Chopin 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 Chopin spent the next several years at Zelazowa Wola with Countess Ludwika Skarbek and her family, tutoring the four children.

Nicolas Chopin's godfather was Fryderyk Skarbek, who had been tutored by Nicolas Chopin.

Probably Nicolas Chopin had been thinking of moving to Warsaw even before the birth of his son Fryderyk.

In October 1810, Nicolas Chopin was appointed "collaborator" and, in June 1814, a regular professor of French language at the Lyceum.

Nicolas Chopin held this post until the lyceum's closure in 1833.

In 1833, with the reorganization of the educational system following the November 1830 Uprising, Nicolas Chopin was to have received a position at a planned Pedagogical Institute.

Nicolas Chopin died of tuberculosis in Warsaw on 3 May 1844, aged seventy-three.

Nicolas Chopin is interred with his wife at Powazki Cemetery.

The couple had four children: Ludwika, born 1807, who married Jozef Jedrzejewicz; their only son, Fryderyk Franciszek, born 1810, a pianist and composer best known as Frederic Nicolas Chopin; Izabela, born 9 July 1811, who married Antoni Barcinski; and Emilia, born in 1812, who died of tuberculosis in 1827, aged fourteen.