The Secrets of the Marriage State--Prince Radzivil,[24] or what is not
all allowed in Poland?
In my fourteenth year I had my eldest son, David. At my marriage I was
only eleven years old, and owing to the retired life common among people
of our nation in those regions, as well as the want of mutual
intercourse between the two sexes, I had no idea of the essential duties
of marriage, but looked on a pretty girl as on any other work of nature
or art, somewhat as on the pretty medicine-box that I stole. It was
therefore natural that for a considerable time after marriage I could
not have any thought about the fulfilment of its duties. I used to
approach my wife with trembling as a mysterious object. It was therefore
supposed that I had been bewitched at the time of the wedding; and under
this supposition I was brought to a witch to be cured. She took in hand
all sorts of operations, which of course had a good effect, although
indirectly through the help of the imagination.
My life in Poland from my marriage to my emigration, which period
embraces the springtime of my existence, was a series of manifold
miseries with a want of all means for the promotion of culture, and,
necessarily connected with that, an aimless application of my powers, in
the description of which the pen drops from my hands, and the painful
memories of which I strive to stifle.[25]
The general constitution of Poland at the time; the condition of our
people in it, who, like the poor ass with the double burden, are
oppressed by their own ignorance and the religious prejudices connected
therewith, as well as by the ignorance and prejudices of the ruling
classes; the misfortunes of my own family;--all these causes combined to
hinder me in the course of my development, and to check the effect of my
natural disposition.
The Polish nation, under which I comprehend merely the Polish nobility,
is of a very mixed kind. Only the very few have an opportunity of
culture by means of upbringing, instruction, and well-directed travels,
by which they can best promote at once their own welfare and that of
their tenantry. Most of them, on the other hand, spend their lives in
ignorance and immorality, and become the sport of their extravagant
passions, which are ruinous to their tenants. They make a display with
titles and orders, which they disgrace by their actions; they own many
estates which they do not understand how to manage, and they are at
perpetual feud with one another, so that the kingdom must of necessity
become the prey of its neighbours, who are envious of its greatness.
Prince Radzivil was, as Hettmann in Poland and Voivode in Lithuania, one
of the greatest magnates, and as occupant of three inheritances in his
family owned immense estates. He was not without a certain kindness of
heart and good sense; but, through neglected training and a want of
instruction, he became one of the most extravagant princes that ever
lived. From want of occupation, which was a necessary consequence of
neglect in cultivating his tastes and widening his knowledge, he gave
himself up to drinking, by which he was tempted to the most ridiculous
and insane actions. Without any particular inclination for it he
abandoned himself to the most shameful sensuality; and without being
cruel, he exercised towards his dependents the greatest cruelties.
He supported at great cost an army of ten thousand men, which was used
for no purpose in the world except display; and during the troubles in
Poland he took, without knowing why, the part of the Confederates. By
this means he got himself encumbered with the friendship of the
Russians, who plundered his estates, and plunged his tenants into the
greatest destitution and misery. He himself was obliged several times to
flee from the country, and to leave as booty for his enemies treasures
which had been the gathering of many generations.
Who can describe all the excesses he perpetrated? A few examples will, I
believe, be sufficient to give the reader some idea of them. A certain
respect for my former prince does not allow me to consider his faults as
anything but faults of temperament and education, which deserve rather
our pity than our hatred and contempt.
When he passed through a street, which he commonly did with the whole
pomp of his court, his bands of music and soldiers, no man, at the peril
of his life, durst show himself in the street; and even in the houses
people were by no means safe. The poorest, dirtiest peasant-woman, who
came in his way, he would order up into his carriage beside himself.
Once he sent for a respectable Jewish barber, who, suspecting nothing
but that he was wanted for some surgical operation, brought his
instruments with him, and appeared before the prince.
"Have you brought your instruments with you?" he was asked.
"Yes, Serene Highness," he replied.
"Then," said the prince, "give me a lancet, and I will open one of your
veins."
The poor barber had to submit. The prince seized the lancet; and as he
did not know how to go about the operation, and besides his hand
trembled as a result of his hard drinking, of course he wounded the
barber in a pitiable manner. But his courtiers smiled their applause,
and praised his great skill in surgery.
He went one day into a church, and being so drunk that he did not know
where he was, he stood against the altar, and commenced to ----. All who
were present became horrified. Next morning when he was sober, the
clergy brought to his mind the misdeed he had committed the day before.
"Eh!" said the prince, "we will soon make that good." Thereupon he
issued a command to the Jews of the place, to provide at their own
expense, fifty stone of wax for burning in the church. The poor Jews
were therefore obliged to bring a sin-offering for the desecration of a
Christian Church by an orthodox Catholic Christian.
He once took it into his head to drive on the wall round the town. But
as the wall was too narrow for a coach with six horses,--and he never
drove in any other,--his hussars were obliged, with much labour and
peril of their lives, to carry the coach with their hands till he had
driven round the town in this way.
Once he drove with the whole pomp of his court to a Jewish synagogue,
and, without any one to this day knowing the reason, committed the
greatest havoc, smashed windows and stoves, broke all the vessels, threw
on the ground the copies of the Holy Scriptures kept in the ark, and so
forth. A learned, pious Jew, who was present, ventured to lift one of
these copies from the ground, and had the honour of being struck with a
musket-ball by His Serene Highness' own hand. From here the train went
to a second synagogue, where the same conduct was repeated, and from
there they proceeded to the Jewish burial-place, where the buildings
were demolished, and the monuments cast into the fire.
Can it be conceived, that a prince could show himself so malicious
towards his own poor subjects, whom he was in a position to punish
legally whenever they really did anything amiss? Yet this is what
happened here.
On one occasion he took it into his head to make a trip to Mohilna, a
hamlet belonging to him, which lay four short miles from his Residence.
This had to be done with his usual suite and all the pomp of his court.
On the morning of the appointed day the train went forth. First marched
the army in order according to its usual regimental
divisions,--infantry, artillery, cavalry, and so on. Then followed his
bodyguard, Strelitzi, consisting of volunteers from the poor nobility.
After them came his kitchen-waggons, in which Hungarian wine had not
been forgotten. These were followed by the music of his janissaries, and
other bands. Then came his coach, and last of all his satraps. I give
them this name, because I can compare this train with no other than that
of Darius in the war against Alexander. Towards evening His Serene
Highness arrived at our public house in the suburb of the town which was
His Serene Highness' Residence, Nesvij. I cannot say that he arrived in
his own high person, for the Hungarian wine had robbed him of all
consciousness, in which alone of course personality rests. He was
carried into the house and thrown with all his clothes, booted and
spurred, on to my mother-in-law's dirty bed, without giving it a supply
of clean linen.
As usual, I had to take to flight. My Amazons, however, I mean my
mother-in-law and my wife, trusted to their heroic mettle, and remained
at home alone. Riot went on the whole night. In the very room where His
Serene Highness slept, wood was chopped, cooking and baking were done.
It was well known that, when His Serene Highness slept, nothing could
waken his high person except perhaps the trumpet of the Judgment-Day.
The next morning, when he wakened, and looked around, he scarcely knew
whether to trust his eyes, when he found himself in a wretched
public-house, thrown on to a dirty bed swarming with bugs. His valets,
pages, and negroes waited on his commands. He asked how he had come
there, and was answered, that His Serene Highness had yesterday
commenced a journey to Mohilna, but had halted here to take rest, that
his whole train had meanwhile gone on, and had undoubtedly arrived in
Mohilna by this time.
The journey to Mohilna was for the present given up, and the whole train
ordered back. They returned accordingly to the Residence in the usual
order and pomp. But the prince was pleased to hold a great banquet in
our public-house. All the foreign gentlemen, who happened to be in the
place at the time, were invited. The service used on the occasion was of
gold, and it is impossible adequately to realise the contrast which
reigned here in one house, between Asiatic splendour and Lappish
poverty. In a miserable public-house, whose walls were black as coal
with smoke and soot, whose rafters were supported by undressed round
stems of trees, whose windows consisted of some fragments of broken
panes of bad glass, and small strips of pine covered with paper,--in
this house sat princes on dirty benches at a still dirtier table, and
had the choicest dishes and the finest wines served to them on gold
plate.
Before the banquet the prince took a stroll with the other gentlemen in
front of the house, and by chance observed my wife. She was then in the
bloom of her youth; and although I am now separated from her, still I
must do her the justice to allow that--leaving, of course, out of
account all that taste and art contribute to the heightening of a
person's charms, inasmuch as these had had no influence on her--she was
a beauty of the first rank. It was therefore natural that she should
please the prince. He turned to his companions, and said, "Really a
pretty young woman! Only she ought to get a white chemise." This was a
common signal with him, and meant as much as the throwing of a
handkerchief by the Grand Sultan. When these gentlemen therefore heard
it, they became solicitous for the honour of my wife, and gave her a
hint to clear out as fast as possible. She took the hint, slipped
silently out, and was soon over the hills and far away.
After the banquet His Serene Highness proceeded again with the other
gentlemen into town amid trumpets, kettle-drums, and the music of his
janissaries. Then the usual order of the day was followed; that is, a
carousal was carried on the whole afternoon and evening, and then the
party went to a pleasure-house at the entrance to the prince's
zoological garden, where fire-works were set off at great expense, but
usually with accidents. As every goblet was drained, cannons were fired;
but the poor cannoneers, who knew better how to handle the plough than
the cannon, were not seldom injured. "Vivat Kschondsie Radzivil," that
is, "Long live Prince Radzivil," shouted the guests. The palm in this
Bacchanalian sport was of course awarded to the prince; and those who
awarded it were loaded by him with presents, not in perishable coin or
golden snuff-boxes or anything of that sort, but in real estate with
many hundred peasants. At the close a concert was given, during which
His Serene Highness fell gently asleep, and was carried to the castle.
The expenses of such extravagance were of course extorted from the poor
tenantry. If this was not sufficient, debts were contracted, and estates
sold to wipe them out. Not even the twelve golden statues in
life-size,--whether they represented the twelve apostles or the twelve
giants, I do not know,--nor the golden table which had been made for
himself, were spared on such emergencies. And thus the noble estates of
this great prince were diminished, his treasures which had accumulated
during many generations were exhausted, and his tenants----But I must
break off.
The prince died not long ago without heirs of his body. His brother's
son inherited the estates.