This variation is based on ' Je Vends des Scapulaires', a tune in Herold and Halevy's 'Ludovic.'

James Huneker: "The piece is written tastefully, is not difficult, but woefully artificial."

NIecks wrote about this variation: "It is as if Chopin had here thrown overboard the Polish part of his natal inheritance and given himself up unrestrainedly and voluptuously to the French part. Besides various diatonic runs of an inessential and purely ornamental character, there is in the finale actually a plain and full-toned C flat major scale. What other work of the composer could be pointed out exhibiting the like feature? Of course, Chopin is as little successful in entirely hiding his serpentining and chromaticising tendency as Mephistopheles in hiding the limp arising from his cloven foot. Still, these fallings out of the role are rare and transient, and, on the whole, Chopin presents himself as a perfect homme du monde who knows how to say the most insignificant trifles with the most exquisite grace imaginable. There can. be nothing more amusing than the contemporary critical opinions regarding this work, nothing more amusing than to see the at other times censorious Philistines unwrinkle their brows, relax generally the sternness of their features, and welcome, as it were, the return of the prodigal son. We wiser critics of to-day, who, of course, think very differently about this matter, can, nevertheless, enjoy and heartily applaud the prettiness and elegance of the simple first variation, the playful tripping second, the schwarmerische melodious third, the merry swinging fourth, and the brilliant finale. "