READING HALL

BLESSED BE THE PEACEFUL BECAUSE THEY WILL BE CALLED SONS OF GOD

THE HISTORY OF POLAND

CHAPTER IV

PARTIAL ReSTORATION AND FiNAL DISSOLUTION

1796-1863 A.D.

napoleon’s POLICY TOWARDS POLAND

Such was the condition of the Poles when the French emperor endeavoured to attach them to his interests by loudly proclaiming himself their restorer—the breaker of the yoke under which they groaned. That sickness of heart occasioned by hope deferred caused many to turn a deaf ear to his summons; but the majority, electrified at the promise of approaching freedom, flew eagerly to arms, and devoted themselves, with heart and hand, to the will of Napoleon. The brilliant campaign of 1806—the victory of Jena and the advance of the French into Poland to oppose the formidable masses of Russians, who appeared as the allies of Prussia—seemed an earnest of future success, a sure pledge of approaching restoration. Polish regiments were organised with amazing rapidity. To increase the general enthusiasm, Napoleon was unscrupulous enough to proclaim the near approach of Kosciuszko; though, but a few months before, that general, who knew his character, had refused to espouse his views—in other words, to deceive the still confiding Poles. On the 27th of November he entered Posen in triumph; the following month Warsaw received him with no less enthusiasm. The inhabitants of the latter were still more overjoyed when he proceeded to organise a supreme commission of government—a measure which they hailed as the dissevering of the last link that bound them to Prussia. His purpose was announced; his armies were recruited by thousands of the bravest troops in Europe; Friedland bore witness to the talents and valour of Dombrowski and the heroes he commanded ; and the opening of negotiations at Tilsit was hailed by the Poles as the dawning of a bright futurity. Will posterity readily believe that this very man, in his celebrated interview on the Niemen with the emperor Alex­ander, seriously proposed to unite Warsaw, and the conquests which the Poles had assisted him to wrest from Prussia, with the Russian empire, and that the czar refused to accept them ? It was only when Napoleon found the czar too moderate or too conscientious to receive the overture that he formed a small portion of his conquests into the grand duchy of Warsaw, which he united with Saxony!

The duchy of Warsaw consisted of six departments: Posen, Kalish, Plock, Warsaw, Loinza, and Bromberg; its population somewhat exceeded two millions. The Poles were highly dissatisfied with “ this mockery of a country,” as they called it. They had been taught to regard the ancient kingdom, if not Lithuania itself, as about to become inevitably their own; and their mortification may be conceived on finding not only that Prussia was allowed to retain several palatinates, that Austria was guaranteed in her Polish possessions, that the provinces east of the Bug were to remain in the power of Russia, but that a considerable portion of the ancient republic on this side that river was ceded, as the department of Bielostok, in perpetual sovereignty to the czar. The Peace of Tilsit they regarded as the grave of their hopes.

According to the new constitution granted by Napoleon, the virtual master of the duchy, the Catholic religion was properly declared the religion of the state; but ample toleration, and even a community of civil rights, were wisely allowed to the dissidents. Serfage was abolished. The power of the Saxon king, as grand duke of Warsaw, was more extensive than had been enjoyed by his royal predecessors since the time of the Jagellos. With him rested the initiative of all projects of law; the nomination not only of the senators, but the presidents of the dietines, and of the communal assemblies; and the appointment of all officers, civil and military. The code Napoleon was subsequently admitted as the basis of judicial proceedings.

The duchy soon felt the might of its new existence. The exertions of the government of Napoleon, who retained military possession of the country, and whose lieutenant, Davout, occupied Warsaw as headquarters, added to the inevitable expenses of the Civil list, and impoverished the small proprietors. Many, wisely preferring easy circumstances under an absolute but paternal government to ruin with nominal freedom, removed into the Polish provinces subjected to Russia or Austria; for, even in the latter, rapacity was yielding to moderation and mildness. Those who remained consoled themselves with the belief that eventually Poland would be recalled into existence, and her independence re-established on sure foundations. That they should have been made dupes to the emissaries of a man who had never promised but to betray them can be explained only by the well-known truth, How easily do we believe what we hope ! For this reason many native regiments continued in the alliance of France. In the Austrian war of 1809 they covered themselves with renown, and rendered the greatest benefits to the cause of their imperial ally. They conquered Galicia without the smallest aid from France, while the emperor was proceeding elsewhere in his splendid career of victory. They reduced Cracow and the adjacent territory; and though for forty days—days during which the Polish leaders were arrayed in mourning— they were compelled to abandon Warsaw to the archduke Ferdinand, they regained triumphant possession of that capital, and humbled their enemies on every side. They considered that what their own arms had won they had a right to retain, and they regarded as inevitable the incorporation of these conquests with their infant state. They were soon undeceived; they were not allowed to retain a foot of Galicia, and half of their other conquests, between Warsaw and the Austrian frontier, was wrested from them. Four departments—Cracow, Radom, Lublin, and Siedlce—were indeed incorporated with the grand duchy; but this advantage was a poor compensation for the immense sacrifices which had been made—for the loans which had been forcibly raised, for the lives which had been wasted, and for the misery which afflicted every class of the inhabitants. Military conscription had depopulated their towns; the stern agents of despotism—the despotism not of the Saxon king, but of Napoleon—had carried away the produce of the soil, and hostile armies had laid waste their plains. So utterly exhausted was the country that the state could not reckon on the usual contributions, and a royal decree exempted from them the agricultural and mechanical classes.

Previous to opening the Russian campaign, Napoleon, in the view of interesting the Poles in his behalf, had recourse to his usual arts, and, strange to say, with his usual success. The reflecting portion, indeed—but, alas ! how few are they in any nation 1—scorned to be deluded again. “We are flattered,” said a rough old soldier, “when our services are required. Is Poland always to be fed on hope alone?” But the mob—such as do not think, be they high or low—were persuaded, from the representations of the imperial agents, that their ancient republic was speedily to be restored in all its glory; that Lithuania was to be wrested from the czar, and Galicia exchanged by Austria for Illyria. Yet, while the deluded people were meeting at Warsaw to prepare for their approaching high destinies; while the French emperor was enthusiastically hailed as their regenerator; while the abb£ de Pradt, by his authority, added fuel to the patriotic flame, a secret treaty with the emperor Francis had again guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian pos­sessions in Poland. But it was secret, and his purpose was realised: at his voice more than eighty thousand Poles took the field, while a general confederation of the nobles declared the republic restored, the act of declaration being signed by the Saxon king, in whose, house the hereditary monarchy was to be vested. At the same time all Poles in the Russian service were recalled to participate in the joyful event, and, if need were, to seal their new liberties with their blood. This intoxication, however, was of short duration; the reply of Napoleon to the Polish deputation, which had followed him to Vilna, left them no room to hope for his aid. He exhorted them to fight for their own independence, assured them that if all the palatinates combined they might reasonably expect to attain their object, and added, “I must, however, inform you that I have guaranteed to the Austrian emperor the integrity of his states, and that I cannot sanction any project or movement tending to disturb him in the possession of the Polish provinces which remain to him.” So much for Galicia. As to Lithuania, which he was expected to treat as an ally, and to unite with the ancient republic, he not only considered it, but proclaimed it, a hostile country, and ravaged it with impunity. Thus the Lithuanians received an avowedly open enemy, instead of an ally and a friend. Both people had abundant reason to curse their blind credulity. This perfidy was unknown to the Polish troops, who were advancing on the ancient frontiers of Muscovy, or they would surely have forsaken the cause.

It is useless to dwell on the valour displayed by the deluded Poles in this disastrous expedition. The work of Bonaparte—the formation of the grand duchy—was destroyed; the king of Saxony, who had adhered to his cause with extraordinary fidelity, was stripped at once both of it and a portion of his hereditary dominions; the three powers again took possession of the towns which they had held previous to the invasions of Bonaparte, until a congress of all the sovereigns who had taken a prominent part in the war against the common enemy of Europe should assemble, to decide, among other matters, on the fate of the country.

THE ALLIES AND POLAND

After the fall of Bonaparte the attention of the allied sovereigns was powerfully demanded by the state of Poland. The re-establishment of the kingdom in all its ancient integrity was not merely an act of justice to a people whose fall is one of the darkest pages in the history of the world, but it was, of all objects, the one most desirable towards the security of central Europe against the ambition of the czars. But for Poland, a great portion of Christendom might have been subject to the misbelievers; but for her, the northern emperors would probably long ago have poured their wild hordes into the very heart of Germany; the nation which had been, and might again become, the bulwark alike of civil and religious freedom, could not fail to be invested with interest of the very highest order. Public opinion, the interest of rulers, and the sympathy of the governed called for the restoration of injured Sarmatia. The side of humanity, of justice, and of policy was powerfully advocated by France and England; their able plenipotentiaries, Talleyrand and Castlereagh, did all that could be done, short of having recourse to actual hostilities, to attain this European object. But neither power, nor both combined, could contend with success against those which were interested in the partition. France was exhausted by her long wars, and weakened by a restriction within her ancient limits; England could have furnished no more than a handful of troops, nor could all her wealth have hired mercenaries sufficiently numerous or brave to justify her in throwing down the gauntlet of defiance to two such military nations as Prussia and Muscovy. To the honour of the Austrian emperor, he not only disapproved the projected union of the late duchy with Russia, but he expressed his desire for Polish independence, and even his willingness to surrender a portion of his own territories to make the new king­dom more respectable. At this juncture, however, Napoleon escaped from Elba; and Alexander, finding that his aid was indispensable in the approaching contest, was able, not indeed to make his own terms, but to insist on a measure he had long meditated: the union of the grand duchy, as a separate kingdom, with his empire. Not less effectual was his policy with the Poles themselves. By persuading them that his great object was to confer on them a national existence and liberal institutions, he interested them so far in his views, that they would willingly have armed to support those views as they had so often done those of Napoleon. In this state of things, all that France and England could do was to claim a national existence for the whole body of Poles, and to stipulate for their political freedom. Their representations were powerfully supported by the emperor Francis, who again expressed regret that Poland could not be re-established as an independent state with a national represen­tation of its own. Owing to these energetic appeals to his liberality, and to the influence of public opinion so widely diffused by the political press, the autocrat showed no reluctance to make the concessions required. Prussia was no less willing. The result was a solemn engagement formed by the three partitioning powers in concert to confer on their respective Polish subjects a national representation, and national institutions regulated after the form of political existence which each of the respective governments might think proper to grant them.

By the celebrated Treaty of Vienna the following bases were solemnly sanc­tioned :

1. Galicia and the salt mines of Wieliczka were restored to Austria.

2. The grand duchy of Posen, forming the western palatinates bordering on Silesia, and containing a population of about eight hundred thousand souls, was surrendered to Prussia. This power was also confirmed in its conquests made at the period of the first partition.

3. The city and district of Cracow was to belong to none of the three powers, but to be formed into a free and independent republic, under the guarantee of the three. Its extent is nineteen and one-half geographical miles, inhabited at that time by a population of sixty-one thousand souls.

4. The remainder of ancient Poland, comprising the chief part of the recent grand duchy of Warsaw (embracing a country bounded by a line drawn from Thorn to near Cracow in the west, to the Bug and the Niemen in the east), reverted to Russia, and was to form a kingdom forever subject to the czars. Population about four millions.

POLISH DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE NEW CHARTER

The new kingdom of Poland was proclaimed June 20th, 1815; and on December 24th, in the same year, a constitutional charter was granted to the Poles.

The articles of this charter (in number 165) were of so liberal a description as to astonish all Europe. They abundantly prove that at the time of their promulgation Alexander was no enemy of liberal institutions. Though the charter in question has probably forever passed away, the nature of the dispute between the Poles and their monarch cannot be understood without adverting to some of its provisions.

Though the Catholic religion was declared the religion of the state, all dissidents were placed on a footing of perfect equality, as to civil rights, with the professors of the established faith (Art. 11). The liberty of the press was recognised in its fullest extent (16). No subject could be arrested prior to judicial conviction (18). The inviolability of person and property, in the strictest sense, was guaranteed (23 to 26). All public business to be transacted in the Polish language (28); and all offices, civil or military, to be held by natives alone (29). The national representation to be vested in two chambers: senators and deputies (31). The power of the crown (35 to 47) was not more than sufficient to give due weight to the executive; all kings to be crowned at Warsaw, after swearing to the observance of the charter; during his absence, the chief authority to be vested in a lieutenant and council of state (63 to 75). The great public departments to be presided by responsible ministers (76 to 82). The legislative power to rest with the king and the two chambers: an ordinary diet to be held every two years, and sit thirty days; an extraordinary diet whenever judged neeessary by the king (86 to 88). No member could be arrested during a session, except for great offences, and not even then without the consent of the assembly (89). The deliberations of the diet extended to all projects submitted to it by the ministry affecting the laws and the whole routine of internal administration (90 to 94). All deliberations to be public, except when committees were sitting (95). All projects of law to originate with the council of state, and to be laid before the chambers by command of the king; such projects, however, being previously examined by committees of both houses (96 to 98). All measures to be passed by a majority of votes (102). The senators to be nominated by the king, and to exercise their functions for life (110). The deputies (128 in number, or about double that of the senators) were 77 for districts (one for each), and 51 for so many communes (118 and 119). To become a member of this chamber the qualifications were: citizenship; the age of thirty; possession of some portion, however small, of landed property; and the payment, in annual contributions, of one hundred Polish florins (121). No public functionary eligible to sit without the consent of the head of his department (122). The nobles of each district to meet in dietines, for the purpose of electing one of their body to the general diet, and of returning two members to the palatine assemblies (125), all dietines being convoked by the king (126). The class of electors was numerous, comprising: (1) All land­owners, however small, who paid any contribution whatever towards the support of the state; (2) every manufacturer or shopkeeper possessing a capital of ten thousand florins; (3) all rectors and vicars; (4) all professors and teachers; (5) all artists or mechanics distinguished for talent (131). Every elector to be enrolled, and to have reached twenty-one years (132). The tribu­nals to be filled with judges, part nominated by the king and part elected by the palatinates (140); the former being appointed for life, and immovable (141).

Such were the chief provisions of this remarkable charter, which left only two things to be desired: the trial by jury, and the competency of either chamber to propose laws; the initiative was confined to the executive, consisting of the king and the council of state.

The enthusiasm of the Poles towards their sovereign, for some time after the promulgation of this charter, was almost boundless. His lieutenant, Zaionczek, imitated his example, and strove with success to attach the Poles to his sway. Prosperity, the result of a settled and an enlightened government, followed in the train of peace. Innumerable improvements introduced into the public education, the establishment of a university at Warsaw and of an agricultural society at Mount Maria, the rapid increase of trade, the diffusion of wealth, and the consequent advance towards happiness by the nation at large, might well render his government popular. That prosperity, indeed, is his noblest monument. On taking possession of the country he found nothing but desolation and misery. So enormous had been the force which the grand duchy had been compelled to maintain, so heavy the exactions of the treasury, that no country could have borne them, much less one whose two chief outlets for her produce, Dantzic and Odessa, were long closed by the continental system of Napoleon and by the Turkish war. The finances of the duchy, indeed, were unable to pay more than an insignificant portion of the troops; either the remainder was raised by forced loans, or the men went unpaid. Twelve millions of francs, in addition, were borrowed at Paris, on the security of the mines of Wieliczka. Still all would not do; the revenue did not reach one-half of the expenditure; in time, no functionary, civil or ecclesiastical, and scarcely any soldier, was paid. The contractors fled; troops traversed the country at pleasure, plundering indiscriminately all who fell in their way. In short, there was little money or food anywhere, and a total stop was put to all branches of industry. To repair these evils was the em­peror’s first object. By opening the country to foreign merchants, by pro­viding the husbandmen with oxen and horses, by suspending the payment of some taxes and suppressing others, and by providing for the support of his army from his hereditary dominions, he recalled industry and the means of subsistence.

So satisfied was the Polish nation with its new situation in the year ISIS —near three years after its imion with Russia—that the opposition to min­isters in the chamber of deputies was utterly insignificant. The benefits of the government had disarmed the prejudices and antipathies of the people. The emperor himself appears, at this time, to have been no less satisfied; he congratulated himself on the liberal policy he had adopted towards his new subjects, and declared in full senate at Warsaw that he was only waiting to try the effect of the free institutions he had given them, to extend those institutions over all the regions which Providence had confided to his care.

Having now reached the term of the good understanding between the Poles and their monarch, it is necessary to advert to the causes which led first to mistrust, then to hatred, and lastly to open hostility between the two parties.

On the first view of the case, it could not rationally be expected that any considerable degree of harmony could subsist between people who during eight centuries had been at war with each other, and between whom, consequently, a strong national antipathy had been long fostered. And even had they always lived in peace, they were too dissimilar in manners, habits, sen­timents, and religion ever cordially to coalesce. For ages the Pole had idolised a liberty unexampled in any country under heaven; the Muscovite had no will of his own, but depended entirely on God and the czar. The one was the maker and master of kings; the other obeyed, as implicitly as the voice of fate, the most arbitrary orders of his monarch, whom he considered heaven’s favourite vicegerent. The one was enlightened by education and by intercourse with the polished nations of Europe; the other, who long thought it a crime to leave home, was brutilied by superstition and ignorance. Each cursed the other as schismatic—as out of the pale of God’s visible church and doomed to perdition. The antipathy which ages had nourished had been intensely aggravated by late events. The unprovoked violence of Cath­erine, the haughtiness of her troops, the excesses accompanying the elevation and fall of Stanislaus; the keen sense of humiliation—so keen as to become intolerable to a proud people—were causes more than sufficient to neutralise the greatest benefits conferred by the czars.

Another and, if possible, weightier consideration arises. How could the most arbitrary monarch in Europe—one whose will had never been trammelled by either the spirit or the forms of freedom, whose nod was all but omnipotent—be expected to guide the delicately complicated machine of a popular government? Would he be very likely to pay much regard to the apparently insignificant, however necessary, springs which kept it in motion? Would the lord of fifty legions, whose empire extended over half the Old World, be likely to hear with patience the bold voice of freedom in a distant and (as to territory) insignificant corner of his vast heritage?

Under no state of things, however, would the Poles, as long as they were subject to foreign ascendency, have remained satisfied. The recollections of their ancient glory would give a more bitter pang to the consciousness of present degradation. Alexander, indeed, had held out to them the hope of uniting Lithuania under the same form of government; but even in this case, would either Poles or Lithuanians be less subject to the autocrat? Besides, what guarantee had they that even their present advantages would be continued to them? None, surely, but the personal character of the autocrat, who, with the best intentions, was somewhat fickle, and who might any day aban­don the reins of empire to a more rigorous or less scrupulous hand. “What have we to hope,” exclaimed the celebrated Dombrowski at the period at which this compendium is arrived; “what have we not to fear? This very day might we not tremble for the fate which may await us tomorrow?” The general expressed his conviction that if the Poles, instead of being disunited, would cordially combine, they would recover their lost greatness. “Let them,” added he, “retrieve their ancient nationality; let them combine their opinions, their desires, their wishes!” In other words, he meant that the whole nation should enter into an understanding to permit the existence of the present order of things no longer than they could help. “ If the same fortune,” he concluded, “which has given us a sovereign should one day turn round on him, Poland may recover her liberty and independence, and acknowledge no king but the one of her own choice.”

Words like these, and from such a quarter, could not fail to produce their effect. They flew from mouth to mouth; the press began to echo them. The opposition in the chamber of deputies assumed a more formidable appearance. The success, however transient, of the liberal party in Spain and Italy was hailed with transport. Were the Poles to despond at such a crisis? The anti-Russian party, comprising the army, the students in the public schools, the populace of the capital, began to act with greater boldness and decision; no very obscure hints were thrown out that the glorious example of other countries would not be lost nearer home. The newspapers, which followed the current of public opinion, however changing, as inevitably as the shadow does the substance, adopted the same resolute if not menacing tone. It was evident that a revolution was meditated, and that the minds of the people, not merely of the kingdom, but of the countries under the sway of Austria and Prussia, as well as those of the grand duchy, were to be prepared for it by sure though apparently insensible degrees. Privileges were now claimed and principles promulgated of a tendency too democratic to consort with the existing frame of society. That Russia should take alarm at the fearless activity of the press was naturally to be expected. Accordingly, by an ordinance of July 31st, 1819, the censorship was established, in violation of Art. 16.

Infractions of the Charter

If men have no opportunity of expressing their opinions publicly, they will do so privately. When the journals, the legitimate outlets of popular feeling, were thus arbitrarily and impoliticly closed, secret societies began to multiply. A sort of political freemasonry connected the leaders of the meditated movement, and its ramifications extended as far as Vilna. Their avowed object was not merely to free their country and the grand duchy from the Russian yoke, but to unite their brethren of Galicia and Posen in one common cause, and then openly to strike a blow for their dearest rights. But however secret their meetings and purposes, neither could long escape the vigilance of the police, which, since the arrival of Constantine as commander-in-chief of the Polish army, had acquired alarming activity. Why this personage should have interfered in a branch of administration beyond his province—why he should have stepped out of his own peculiar sphere to hire spies, to collect information, and to influence the proceedings of the tribunals against the sus­pected or the accused—has been matter of much conjecture. Perhaps he proposed to render himself necessary to his imperial brother; perhaps he could not live without some bustle to excite him; perhaps his mind was congenially occupied in the discovery and punishment of treason. However this be, lie acted with amazing impolicy. His wisest course—and the Poles themselves once hoped that lie would adopt it—was to cultivate the. attachment of the people among whom he resided, and thereby prepare their minds for one day seconding his views on the crown. Instead of this, he conducted himself towards all whom he suspected of liberal opinions—and few there were who did not entertain them—with violence, often with brutality. At his instigation the secret police pursued its fatal career; arbitrary arrests, hidden con­demnations, the banishment of many, the imprisonment of more, signalised his baneful activity. That amidst so many sentences some should be passed on individuals wholly innocent need not surprise us. Where spies arc hired to mix with society for the purpose of detecting the disaffected, if they do not find treason, they will make it; private malignity and a desire of being thought useful, if not indispensable, to their employers, and of enjoying the rewards due to success in procuring informations, would make them vigilant enough. As this is a profession which none but the basest and most unprincipled of men would follow, we cannot expect that they would always exercise it with much regard to justice. In such men revenge or avarice would be all-powerful.

The University of Vilna was visited with some severity by the agents of this dreaded institution. Twenty of its students were seized and sentenced to different punishments—none, however, very rigorous. Those of Warsaw were not used more indulgently. A state prison was erected in the capital, and its dungeons were soon crowded with inmates—many, no doubt, not undeserving their fate, but not a few the victims of an execrable system. The proceedings, however, which are dark must always be suspected; of the hundreds who were dragged from the bosom of their families and consigned to various fortresses, all would be thought innocent, since none had been legally convicted.

By Art. 10 of the constitutional charter, the Russian troops, when required to pass through Poland, were to be at the entire charge of the czar’s treasury; for years, however, they were stationed at Warsaw—evidently to overawe the population—at the expense of the inhabitants. Then the violations of individual liberty (in opposition to Arts. 18 to 21); the difficulty of procuring passports; the misapplication of the revenue to objects other than those to which it was raised—to the reimbursement of the secret police, for instance; the nomination of men as senators without the necessary qualifications, and who had no other merit than that of being creatures of the govern­ment, were infractions of the charter, as wanton as they were intended to be humiliating.

The army was as much dissatisfied as the nation. The ungovernable temper, and the consequent excesses, of Constantine; the useless but vexa­tious manoeuvres which he introduced; his rigorous mode of exercise, fitted for no other than frames of adamant; and, above all, his overbearing manner towards the best and highest officers in the service, raised him enemies on every side. His good qualities—and he had many—were wholly overlooked amidst his ebullitions of fury, and the unjustifiable, often cruel, acts he com­mitted while under their influence. On ordinary occasions, when his temper was not ruffled, no man could make himself more agreeable; no man could exhibit more—not courtesy, for he was too rough for it—warm-heartedness, and his generosity in pecuniary matters was almost boundless.

But the worst remains yet to be told. Russian money and influence were unblushingly employed in the dietines to procure the return to the general diet of such members only as were known to care less for their country than for their own fortunes. Then, instead of a diet being held every two years (in accordance with Art. 87), none was convoked from 1820 to 1825, and only one after the accession of Nicholas. Finally, an ordinance (issued in 1825) abolished the publicity of the debates in the two chambers, and the most distinguished members of opposition were forcibly removed from Warsaw the night preceding the opening of the diet.

In examining these and a few minor complaints urged with much force by the Polish organs, no one will hesitate to admit that, however the colouring in this painful picture may be overcharged—and overcharged it unquestionably is—the nation had but too much cause for discontent. No wonder that the government and the people should regard each other first with distrust, then with hatred; that the former could not behold with much favour institutions which, however liberal, were not considered sufficiently so by those on whom they had been conferred, or that the latter should have much confidence in a power which had violated the most solemn engagements, and might violate them again. The conflict—long a moral one—between the two was too stormy to be hushed. It was vain to whisper peace, to remind the one party that if wrongs had been endured they had not been wholly unprovoked, or the other, that necessary caution had degenerated into an intolerable, inquisitorial surveillance, and justice into revenge.

Yet with all this irritation it may be doubted whether the majority of the nation were at any time inclined to proceed to extremities. The condition of the country had continued to improve beyond all precedent; at no former period of her history was the public wealth so great or so generally diffused. Bridges and public roads constructed at an enormous expense, frequently at the expense of the czar’s treasury; the multitude of new habitations, remarkable for a neatness and a regard to domestic comfort never before observed; the embellishments introduced into the buildings not merely of the rich, but of tradesmen and mechanics; the encouragement afforded, and eagerly afforded, by the government to every useful branch of industry; the progress made by agriculture in particular, the foundation of Polish prosperity; the accumulation on all sides of national and individual wealth; and, above all, the happy countenances of the inferior classes of society, exhibited a wonderful contrast to what had lately been. The most immense of markets, Russia—a market all but closed to the rest of Europe—afforded constant activity to the manufacturer. To prove this astonishing progress from deplor­able, hopeless poverty to successful enterprise, let one fact suffice. In 1815 there were scarcely one hundred looms for coarse woollen cloths; at the commencement of the insurrection of 1830 there were six thousand.

In contemplating the history of Poland, it cannot but be matter of regret to the philanthropic mind that the nation should, so soon after its union with Russia, have brought on itself the ill-will of that power. Though some slight infractions were made on the spirit rather than the letter of the charter during the first four years of the connection, these might have been remedied by an appeal to the emperor. On the part neither of Alexander nor of his lieutenant did there exist the slightest wish to violate its provisions, until experience had taught both that individual freedom was not so much the object in pursuit as a total separation from the empire. Then it was that liberal institutions became odious in the cabinet of St. Petersburg; that the czar resolved to prevent their extension, on the plea—a mistaken but not unnatural plea—that they were inconsistent with a settled monarchy, and consequently with long-continued social security; then it was that the imperial ministers and their underlings commenced tiieir unwise system—a system but partially known to the czar, and one that would never have been approved by him— of exasperating the Poles, first by petty annoyances, next by depriving them of privileges to which they had a sacred right—of adding fuel to a fire already too intense to continue long harmless.

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION AGAINST RUSSIA (1830 A.D.)

The seeds of hatred, thus unfortunately sown, germinated with silent but fatal rapidity. A vast number of soldiers (especially of unemployed officers); of ardent patriots and students; of all whom Russian haughtiness had provoked or Russian liberality had failed to visit; and, more than all, of that fickle and numerically speaking imposing class so prone to change, were gradually initiated into the great plot destined to concentrate the scattered elements of resistance to imperial violence, and to sweep its framers and abettors from the face of the kingdom. The society, numerous as were its ramifications, was well organised, and its proceedings were wrapped in more than masonic mystery. That not a few of its members were implicated in the conspiracy which exploded on the accession of Nicholas—utterly unknown at present as were the subjects and nature of that conspiracy—appears both 4 from the numerous arrests on that occasion (no fewer than two hundred took place in Poland and Lithuania), and from the very admission of their organs. Though the commission of inquiry, consisting chiefly of Poles, failed to dis­cover the clue to that dark transaction, evidence enough was adduced to prove the existence of a formidable, national association. Two years after­wards (in 182S) that association gained over the great body of Polish officers, and silently waited the progress of events to watch for an opportunity of striking the blow.

It has often been matter of surprise to most thinking foreigners that the Poles did not take advantage of the Turkish war to erect the standard of independence. Evidently, however, their plan was not at that period sufficiently matured. That it was so even in 1S30 may be reasonably doubted. But the French insurrection—which appears not to have been wholly unex­pected in the Polish capital—its daring character, its splendid success, had an electric effect on the whole nation, and disposed the initiated to anticipate the time of their rising. It is well known—it has, indeed, been admitted by both Poles and Frenchmen, including the political organs of the latter— that emissaries from Warsaw held confidential meetings with the leaders of the revolution of July, and were instigated to rouse their countrymen by the promise of immediate aid from the government of the citizen king. That such aid was relied on with the fullest confidence by the Polish patriots them­selves is known.

Two other circumstances powerfully contributed to hasten the long- meditated catastrophe. The army began to entertain the notion that it was to be removed to the south of Europe to assist in extirpating the alarming doctrines of the French politicians, and that its place was to be supplied by an army of Russians. The youths of the military school, too, found or fancied excuse for apprehension. That their design of rising was not unknown to the authorities appears from the eagerness with which one of the hired agents of police endeavoured to win their confidence, professing his devotion to their cause, and imploring permission to share in the execution of their project. Though this fellow overshot his mark; though his eagerness caused him to be suspected and shunned; he learned enough to be convinced not only that an insurrection was resolved on, but that it was actually at hand.

The apprehensions of the army and the students—of whom the latter had everything to fear from the grand duke should he, as he was believed to have threatened, arrest and try them by martial law—the conviction that the whole populace of the capital were friendly to the project, the secret encouragement of France, the eagerness of the enterprising to court danger for its very sake, the assumed approbation of the free towards the cause at least, if not towards the time and circumstances, of the insurrection—hastened the opening of the great tragedy. The first object of its actors was to seize on the person of the grand duke, their most obnoxious enemy—to use him, perhaps, as a hos­tage for their safety, should fortune prove unpropitious. The students—as the young and the rash will always be in such cases—were the authorised leaders of the movement. On the evening of November 29th one of them, in accordance with a preconcerted plan, entered the school and called his comrades to arms. The call was instantly obeyed. On their way to the residence of Constantine, which stands about two miles from the city, their number was increased by the students of the university and public schools. Two or three companies—not a regiment, as has been usually stated—of Russian cavalry they furiously assailed and overpowered. This first success they did not use with much moderation; towards a few of the officers, who appear to have been personally obnoxious, they exhibited great animosity; three or four were cruelly massacred after the conflict was over. They forced the palace, flew to the grand duke’s apartments, but had the mortification of finding their victim fled; the intrepid fidelity of a servant had first concealed, then assisted him to escape. As their first object had thus unexpectedly failed, the conspirators now resolved to gain the city. Their retreat was opposed by the Russian guards; but such was the spirit which animated them, such were the skill and courage they displayed, that after a struggle continued over a space of two miles they accomplished their purpose.

During this desperate affray the efforts of another party within the city were more successful. A considerable body of cadets and students paraded the streets, calling on the inhabitants to arm for their country’s freedom. They were joined, as had been previously arranged, not by hundreds, but by thousands, of native troops, and their force was augmented by several pieces of cannon. The Russian posts, which were now attacked, were carried; the prison doors were opened, and criminals as well as debtors invited to swell the assailants; the theatre was speedily emptied of its spectators; and the great body of citizens were provided with arms from the public arsenal. In the excitement consequent on this extraordinary commotion, every part of which was conducted with a regularity that could only be the result of a maturely formed design, no reader will be surprised, how much soever he may lament, to find that several excesses were committed. Many Russians were massacred; many Poles, known to have been on terms of intimacy with the grand duke, shared the same fate. But some dark deeds were done for which no excitement can apologise—some which will forever disgrace this memorable night. While a number of Russian and a few Polish superior officers were laudably exerting themselves to calm the ferocity of the people; while they fearlessly rode among them, and urged them to desist from their violent proceedings, to lay their grievances before the emperor, who would readily redress them, and, above all, to remember that the Russians and themselves were fellow-subjects, and refrain from bloodshed—these very peacemakers, whose heroism should have commanded the respect and whose kind-hearted intentions should have won the affections of the populace, were barbarously massacred. Some other officers of rank—all Russians, except one—were made prisoners.

By the morning of the 30th all the Polish troops, with the exception of one regiment and a few companies who held for Constantine and remained with him, had joined the insurgents. Nearly thirty thousand armed citizens swelled their dense ranks. To oppose so formidable a mass would have been madness. In twelve hours the revolution was begun and completed. In vain did the grand duke, who lay without the walls, meditate the recovery of the intrenchments and fortifications. His isolated though desperate efforts to re-enter the city were repulsed with serious loss; and when he became acquainted with the number of his antagonists he wisely desisted from his purpose. He removed to a greater distance from the walls, as if uncertain what steps to take in so extraordinary an emergency.

In a few hours an administrative council was formed to preside over the destinies of the infant state. It was composed of men distinguished for their talents, character, or services. At first they evidently entertained no inten­tion of throwing off their allegiance to the czar; all their proclamations were in his name, and all their claims bounded to a due execution of the charter. As their ambition or their patriotism rose with their success, they insisted on an incorporation of Lithuania, and the other Polish provinces subject to Russia, with the kingdom. Some months after they declared the throne vacant—a declaration highly rash and impolitic.

The behaviour of Constantine in his retreat was not without generosity. At the request of the provisional government, he agreed to send back the Polish troops who still remained faithful to him, and proposed that if the people would submit he would endeavour not only to procure an amnesty for all, but the redress of their alleged grievances. It was too late, however, to think of such submission or such security; the die was irrevocably cast. If the Poles were guilty of rashness in what they had just effected, they were not likely to commit the folly of undoing it. On the 3rd of December his imperial highness evacuated the vicinity of the capital; about the middle of the month he crossed the Bug. He was unmolested in his retreat.

The Polish aristocracy now set up a dictatorship under Gen. Jos. Chly- lopicki, whereupon the court of St. Petersburg opened hostile negotiations. Nicholas declined to recognise the dictatorship and demanded an unconditional surrender.. On January 25th Poland declared at an end the succession of the Russian imperial house to the throne of Poland and confirmed the national government. Against the Russian army under Diebitsch the Poles sent an army commanded by Divernicki. This army won several skirmishes, and on February 19th, 1831, besieged GrochowZ The Russians lost seven thousand men in this battle, and the Poles who kept the field, two thousand. The Russians were again defeated at Zelicho (April 6th), at Siedlce (April 10th); and at Austrolensa (.May 26th); on June 10th Diebitsch died of cholera. On June 19th, however, the Poles suffered a decided defeat at Vilna, and on September 8th M arsaw was taken by the Russians. In the following month the insurrection was suppressed and a ukase known as the organic statute issued by the czar, by which Poland became an integral part of the Russian empire.

CONDITIONS LEADING TO THE INSURRECTION OF 1846

The condition of the native Poles since the last partition in 1794 had been very different in the portions allotted to the three partitioning powers. The Russians, aware that the nobles were the class in which the hostility to them was strongest, and fearful of the effects of a national revolution on the extreme frontier of their immense empire, had made the greatest efforts to ameliorate the condition of the peasants. The condition of the peasants became greatly superior to what it had ever been under the old national government and their stormy Comitia. The peasants were all emancipated, and put on the footing of farmers, entitled to the whole fruits of their toil, after satisfying the rent of the landlord.

In Prussian Poland, styled the grand duchy of Posen, the changes were still more radical, and perhaps erred on the side of undue concession to the popular demands. In 1817 the Prussian government, under the direction of the able and patriotic Baron Stein, had adopted a change which a revolutionary government would hardly have ventured to promulgate; they established to a certain extent an agrarian law. In lieu of the services in kind, which by the old law they were bound to give to their landlords in consideration of being maintained by them, the peasants received a third of the land they cultivated in property to themselves, and they were left to provide for their own subsistence. The old prohibition against the sale of lands on the part of the nobles was taken away, and facilities given for the purchase of the remaining two-thirds by the peasants, by permitting twenty-five years for paying up the price. This was a very great change, which at first sight seemed to be fraught with the dangers of revolutionary innovation; but being free of the most dangerous element in such changes—the excited pas­sions of the people—it was not attended with any such effects. The nobles, who were to appearance despoiled of a third of their land, ere long found that, from the enhanced value of the remainder, and being freed from the obligation of maintaining their peasants, they were in effect gainers by the change, and they were perfectly contented with it.

In Austrian Poland, on the other hand, and especially in that large portion of it called Galicia, although certain changes had been introduced with a view to ameliorating the condition of the peasants, they had not been so well considered, and bad by no means been attended by the same beneficial results. The serfs were in form emancipated, and the proprietor was even bound to furnish them with pieces of land adequate to the maintenance of themselves and their families. If matters had stopped here all would have been well; the insurrection which followed would have been prevented, and the frightful calamities which followed in its train would have been spared to humanity. But unfortunately the peasants, instead of being left in the undisturbed possession of their patches of ground, were subjected to a great variety of feudal services and restrictions, which being novel, and such as they had never previously been accustomed to, excited very great discontent. The cultivators, though entitled to the fruits of their little bit of ground, were not, properly speaking, proprietors; they could neither alienate them nor acquire other domains; and if any of them abandoned his possession, it devolved, as a matter of course, to another peasant, who became subjected to the corvees and seignorial rights exigible from every occupant of the land. On the other hand, the nobles, who alone could hold lands in fee-simple, were not entitled to sell them, and this reduced almost to nothing the value of such estates as were charged with debt. So strongly was this grievance felt that numerous petitions were presented to the Aulic Council, praying for deliverance from the onerous exclusive privilege of holding lands. At length the government yielded, and the sale of lands was authorised. Immediately a class of small proprietors began to arise, who promised, by the possession of a little capital and habits of industry, to be of the utmost sendee to the country. But Metternich and the government ere long took the alarm at the democratic ideas prevalent among these new landholders, especially in the year 1S19, when all Europe was in commotion; and by an imperial edict, published in 1819, the perilous privilege of exclusively holding land was generally re-established. The only exception was in favour of the burghers of Leopol, who were almost entirely of German origin, and were permitted to acquire and hold lands.

The corvee also, or legal obligation on the part of the peasants to pay the rent of their lands in the form of labour rendered to their landlords, either on that portion of the estate which remained in his natural possession, or on the public roads, excited great discontent. Nothing could be more rea­sonable than such an arrangement. In truth, it is the only way in which rent can be paid in those remote districts where the sale of produce is diffi­cult or impossible, and the cultivator has no other way of discharging what he owes to his landlord but by sen-ices in kind. Both parties, however, in Galicia expressed the utmost dissatisfaction at this state of things. The landlords sighed for payments in money, which might enable them to join the gaieties or share in the pleasures of Vienna or Warsaw; while the peasants anxiously desired to be delivered from all obligations to render personal service to their landlords, and allowed to exert their whole industry on their possessions for their own behoof. So numerous were the petitions on the subject presented to government that they laid down certain regulations for the commutation of services in kind into money payments; but the for­malities required were so onerous and minute that they remained generally inoperative, and the services in kind continued to be rendered as before. At length the whole states of Galicia presented a formal demand to the gov­ernment for the entire abolition of corvtes in that province; but the cabinet of Vienna eluded the demand, alleging that, before it could be carried into effect, a regular survey would require to be made of the whole province, and that they had no funds to meet the expenses of such an undertaking. Upon this the nobles formally declared, in h general assembly of the four estates, that they would themselves bear the whole expense of the survey; but with their characteristic habits of procrastination the Austrian government allowed the offer to remain without an answer. Meanwhile, as the cognisance of all disputes between the landlords and their peasants was devolved upon the Austrian authorities, and as the taxes were progressively rising, the govern­ment shared in the whole unpopularity accruing from the vexed question of the corvees, and the discontent, both among the nobles and peasants of the country, became universal.

These causes of difference were in themselves sufficiently alarming; but they would have passed over without serious commotion had it not been for the efforts of the Socialists, who seized upon the rude, unlettered peasants of this province, who in every age have shown themselves in an especial manner prone to illusion and superstition, and propagated among them the dan­gerous doctrine that thfir only masters were “God and the emperor”; that the landlords had no right to any portion of the fruits of their toil; and that, on the contrary, their whole property belonged of right to themselves. These doctrines speedily spread among the enthusiastic and illiterate peasants of Galicia. The principal instruments of excitement employed among the peasants were emissaries who went from village to village as the missionaries had formerly done in some parts of the West Indies, who inculcated the doctrine that the corvee had been abolished by the emperor seven years before, and was illegally kept up by the seigneurs, who refused to carry his paternal intentions into effect. Thus the Galician insurrection acquires an importance in general history which would not otherwise have belonged to it; for it was the first practical application of the doctrines of the socialists.

Two peculiar circumstances existed in Galicia which aggravated in a most serious degree the dangers, already sufficiently great, arising from the spread of such dangerous doctrines among an ignorant and excitable peasantry. The first of these was the multitude of Jews who were there, as elsewhere in Poland, settled in the chief towns and villages, and who monopolised nearly every situation of profit or importance in them. The greater part of their emoluments were derived from the sale of spirits and other intoxicating liquors, to which the Poles, like all northern nations, were immoderately addicted. The proprietors and the priests had long endeavoured to check this propensity, which there, as elsewhere, consumed nearly the whole sub­stance of the working classes in debasing pleasures, and considerable success had attended their efforts. This was sufficient to set against them the whole body of the Jews.

The second circumstance which aggravated the hostile passions and in­creased the dangers of Galicia was the number of disbanded soldiers spread through the province, who were secretly retained as a sort of disguised police by the government. As the troops for the public service were levied in Galicia, as in Russia, not by ballot, but by a requisition of a certain number from each landlord, they were composed, for the most part, of the most rest­less and dangerous characters, whom it was deemed advisable to get quit of in this manner. Eight thousand of these unscrupulous persons had been disbanded in the end of 1845; but the government, aware of the dangers which threatened the province, and secretly dreading both the nobles and the peasants, retained them in their pay, and authorised them to seize and hand over to the Austrian authorities any persons belonging to either party who might be the first to threaten the public tranquillity. Deeming the nobles the more formidable, and likely most to embarrass the government, these agents inculcated on the peasants the belief that a general massacre of them was in contemplation, and to keep themselves well on their guard against the first aggressive movement on the part of the landlords. Thus the conflict which was approaching in Galicia was not between the govern­ment and the people.

Under these circumstances a collision at no distant period was inevitable; but the first blow was struck by the nobles. Driven to despair by the knowledge of an approaching socialist insurrection among the peasants, they organised a coup-de-main against Zamow, the chief place of the Communists, where they hoped to be joined by the whole artisans, mechanics, and bourgeois of the province. The means at their disposal, however, to effect this object were miserably inadequate; the forces at their command were only two hun­dred, and the Austrian garrison of Zamow was two thousand strong. The national party at Cracow strongly sympathised with these movements, and did their utmost to expand them into a general insurrection, extending over the whole of Old Poland, and which might terminate in the re-establishment of the national independence. Thus was the country at the same time threatened with a double insurrection, and yet so strangely were the leaders of the two movements ignorant of each other, that not only was there no concert, but there existed the most deadly enmity between them. The nobles and superior classes were not more exasperated against the Austrian government, which had so long evaded their petitions and refused to redress their grievances, than the peasantry were against the nobles, by whom they had been led to believe the prodigal gifts of the emperor to them had been intercepted or concealed. Both parties were prepared to take up arms; but the two classes of insurgents were not prepared to fight in common against the government, but to massacre each other.

The seignorial insurgents appointed their rendezvous at the village of Lysagora, three leagues from Zarnow, where one hundred of them met on the night of the 19th of February. The cold was excessive, the ground covered with snow, and the conspirators, who for the most part arrived in sledges, were already almost frozen to death when they arrived, with their arms falling from their hands, at the place of rendezvous. But the govern­ment authorities were aware of what was going on, and at daybreak on the following morning the little band was surrounded by a greatly superior force composed of Austrian soldiers and armed peasants. The conspirators, ignorant of the intentions of the band by whom they were surrounded, laid down their arms, calling upon their comrades to fraternise with them; but no sooner had they done so than the peasants threw themselves upon them, bound them hand and foot and thrust them into a cellar, from whence they were conveyed in wagons to Zarnow. Hearing of this disaster, another band of conspirators near Ulikow threw away their arms and dispersed; but they were pursued with unrelenting fury by peasants, by whom the greater part were tracked out and cut down. These events, inconsiderable in themselves, became the source from which calamities unnumbered ensued to the whole province. Everywhere, when the news was received, which it generally was with great exaggeration, the peasants flew to arms, and commenced an attack on the chateaux of the seigneurs in their vicinity. By a refinement in cruelty which indicated too clearly the infernal agency at work among them, the peasants of each estate were directed, not against the chateau of their own landlord, but against that of the neighbouring one, in order that no lingering feelings of humanity might interfere with the work of destruction. Under such direction it proceeded with a rapidity, and terminated in a complete­ness, which might satisfy the most demoniacal spirit.

During these horrors the effervescence in Cracow reached its climax. That free town had long been the centre in which a general Polish insurrection was organised, and from which the revolutionary' emissaries were despatched in every' direction throughout Lithuania and Poland. The original movement, which terminated so disastrously in Galicia, was concerted with the leaders of the committee there, who had been formally installed in power by the com­mittees in all parts of Poland on the 24th of January', and the insurrection was definitely fixed for the 24th of February. These preparations, and the general effervescence which prevailed, did not escape the notice of the consuls of the three powers resident in Cracow, and so early as the 16th of February they formally, demanded of the senate whether they could guarantee the public tranquillity. They replied that they could do so from all internal dangers, but not from such as came from without; and that if danger threat­ened from that quarter, they abandoned themselves to the prudence of the three residents. Upon this a body of Austrian troops, under General Collin, marched towards the town, and entered it on the 18th. The conspirators were surprised by this sudden inroad, which took place before the day fixed for the insurrection, and made very little resistance. Two days afterwards, however, a serious attack was made on the Imperialists by a body of insurgents who came from without, in which the Poles were unsuccessful. But the accounts received next day of the progress of the insurrection in Galicia and its ramifications in every part of Poland, and the magnitude of the forces which were accumulating round Cracow, were so formidable that Collin deemed his position untenable, and two days afterwards evacuated the place, taking with him the officers of government, senate, urban militia, and police, and made a precipitate retreat towards Galicia, abandoning the whole state of Cracow to the insurgents, by whom a provisional government was immediately appointed as for the whole of Poland. The first step of the new au­thorities was to publish a manifesto, in which, after stating that “all Poland was up in arms,” it was declared that the order of nobility was abolished, all property was to be divided among the peasants occupying it, and the slightest resistance to the revolutionary authorities was punished with instant death.

Even if the insurrection had ever had any chances of success, they were utterly destroyed by this violent and ill-judged proclamation. Everyone saw that a democratic despotism was about to arise, endangering life, destructive to property, and fatal to all the ends of the social union. The insurgents increased considerably in strength, and in a few days twenty-five hundred bold and ardent spirits were concentrated in Cracow, chiefly from the neigh­bouring provinces. But the end was approaching. The alarm had now spread to all the partitioning powers, and orders were given to the Russian, Prussian, and Austrian forces to advance against the city. All was soon accomplished. The Austrian general, Collin, stopped his retreat, and retook Wieluzka and Podgorze, which he had evacuated in the first alarm conse­quent on the insurrection, while large bodies of Prussian and Austrian troops also advanced against the insurgents. Resistance in such circumstances was hopeless; and in the night of the 2nd of March the insurgents, still twenty-five hundred strong, evacuated the town, and the whole soon after capitulated to the Prussians. Meanwhile a Russian battalion and some Cossacks penetrated into Cracow, which was immediately declared in a state of siege, and next day jointly occupied by the forces of the three partitioning powers.

After a long deliberation it was resolved to repeal the treaties of April 21st, 1815, which established the republic of Cracow, and to restore it to the Austrian government, from whose dominions it had been originally taken. This was accordingly done by the treaty of November 16th, 1846, which, after narrating the repeated conspiracies of which the republic of Cracow had been the theatre, and the open insurrection and attempt to revolutionise Poland which had just been organised in its bosom, declared the existence of the republic terminated, and itself, with its whole territory, restored to Austria, as it stood before 1809. Thus the last relic of Polish nationality seemed finally extinguished.

THE INSURRECTION OF 1863

The national spirit was by no means altogether subdued, however, as later events were to show. Yet for a long time there was no outward manifestation of its existence.

During the Crimean war Poland gave no sign of life, and not the faintest whisper arose from her cities, or her silent plains, which told the world she was resolved to reassert her ancient freedom. Perhaps in secret she cherished dreams of winning back again her fallen independence; but if she did, those visions found no expression, and there was nothing to indicate to the world that her ancient spirit yet survived. A few regiments of militia, a few reserved battalions of inferior soldiery had kept in check the land which, twenty-five years before, had haughtily challenged Russian supremacy on the battlefield of Grochow. It seemed as though a quarter of a century of servitude had trampled out all hope and expectation for the future, and as though Russia had at length succeeded in incorporating Poland virtually, as well as in name, in her vast empire. Neither had Poland shown any indication of political life when in 1848 almost every European nation was in arms; then when the wildest visions of political enthusiasts found a momentary realisa­tion, when dormant nationalities were everywhere rousing themselves, the champions of freedom listened for the battle-cry of Poland; but Poland gave no sign. At her very gates the war was raging, and she made no effort when the struggling liberties of Hungary were being trampled out to save a people whose cause, she might well have thought, was intimately connected with her own. The Polish soldier was seen inarching in the Russian army when Kossuth fled and Gorgey capitulated.

In the Crimea the valour of the Polish soldiers had been very remarkable, and no whisper of disaffection had escaped them, nor was there any reason to believe that they hoped for a revival of national independence.

But an insurrection broke out at the beginning of 1S63. The establish­ment of Italian independence, coinciding in time with the general unsettlement and expectation of change which marked the first years of Alexander’s reign, had stirred once more the ill-fated hopes of the Polish national leaders. From the beginning of the year 1861 Warsaw was the scene of repeated tumults. The czar was inclined, within certain limits, to a policy of con­ciliation. The separate legislature and separate army which Poland had possessed from 1815 to 1830 he was determined not to restore; but he was willing to give Poland a large degree of administrative autonomy, to confide the principal offices in its government to natives, and generally to relax something of that close union with Russia which had been enforced by Nicholas since the rebellion of 1831. But the concessions of the czar, accompanied as they were by acts of repression and severity, were far from satisfying the demands of Polish patriotism. It was in vain that Alexander in the summer of 1862 sent his brother Constantine as viceroy to Warsaw, established a Polish council of state, placed a Pole, Wielopolski, at the head of the adminis­tration, superseded all the Russian governors of Polish provinces by natives, and gave to the municipalities and the districts the right of electing local councils; these concessions seemed nothing, and were in fact nothing, in comparison with the national independence which the Polish leaders claimed. The situation grew worse and worse. An attempt made on the life of the grand duke Constantine during his entry into Warsaw was but one among a series of similar acts which discredited the Polish cause and strengthened those who at St. Petersburg had from the first condemned the czar’s attempts at conciliation. At length the Russian government took the step which precipitated revolt. A levy of one in every two hundred of the population throughout the empire had been ordered in the autumn of 1S62. Instructions were sent from St. Petersburg to the effect that in raising the levy in Poland the country population were to be spared, and that all persons who were known to be connected with the disorders in the towns were to be seized as soldiers. This terrible sentence against an entire political class was carried out, so far as it lay within the power of the authorities, on the night of January 14th, 1863. But before the imperial press-gang surrounded the houses of its victims a rumour of the intended blow had gone abroad. In the preceding hours, and during the night of the 14th, thousands fled from Warsaw and the other Polish towns into the forests. There they formed themselves into armed bands, and in the course of the next few days a guerilla warfare broke out wherever Russian troops were found in sufficient strength or off their guard.

In the end, however, the mutineers were utterly vanquished. The meas­ures taken by Russia leading to the final incorporation of Poland with the empire belong properly to Russian history, and have been sufficiently detailed in an earlier volume (XVII). National feeling still exists in Poland, but the once powerful principality no longer exists as an autonomous body politic.

“By the side of its life-giving and beneficent agrarian policy,” says Fyffe, “Russia has pursued the odious system of debarring Poland from all means of culture and improvement associated with the use of its own language, and has aimed at eventually turning the Poles into Russians by the systematic impoverishment and extinction of all that is essentially Polish in thought, in sentiment, and in expression. The work may prove to be one not beyond its power, and no common perversity on the part of its government would be necessary to turn against Russia the millions who in Poland owe all they have of prosperity and independence to the czar; but should the excess of Russian propagandism, or the hostility of church to church, at some distant date engender a new struggle for Polish independence, this struggle will be one governed by other conditions than those of 1831 or 1863, and Russia will, for the first time, have to conquer on the Vistula not a class nor a city, but a nation.”