Some months later a more serious manifestation followed. It was a

commemorative service for the dead killed at that battle of Grochow,

in which in 1831 the Polish army contended during three days with the

Russian troops; and on that day it was (February 25th) that a new

Poland appeared, personified by a populace which walked with tapers

in its hands, reciting as with one voice this religious and national

hymn: ‘Holy Lord God! God Almighty, God Immortal, have mercy upon us!

From plague and pestilence, from fire and sword, O Lord, deliver us!

Be pleased to give us back our native land! Holy Virgin Mary, Queen of

Poland, pray for us!’ Then the crisis declared itself, and agitation

spread, as the concessions of Russia alternated with scenes of blood;

and thus it continued till April 8th, the day in which violent measures

for repressing the movement finally prevailed. It is not what followed

these events that I now have to describe. Everything in them bore the

mark of those influences which I have pointed out. This movement, as

has been seen, began with a religious service, and when it came to

a crisis, what was the step taken by those who had some power over

the people, and who felt the importance of the moment? A popular

delegation, authorised by the Lieutenant-Governor, took the command of

the town; a voluntary constabulary was organised for the prevention

of all disorders, and the Agricultural Society itself interfered as

a moderator, and a guardian of the peace. The addresses presented to

the Emperor contained nothing but what was according to law, since

they hardly even exacted all that had been assured to Poland by the

treaty of 1815. And what was the attitude of the populace itself? It

showed its _life_, if the expression may be permitted, by abstaining

from all conflicts. It assembled to give vent to its wishes and to its

complaints, but it presented itself unarmed and passive; even after

it was dispersed by force, women, children, and old men crowded round

a Madonna with weeping and with prayers. Strange insight into the

nature of a movement, of which the tactics have been to resist, but

not to take up arms! What constitutes its originality is the alliance

already mentioned of practical sense with a feeling which is moral,

religious, and even mystic--an alliance of which the secret is in the

conscience of a people, and which accords marvellously well with all

the instincts of the Polish nation, and indeed of the Slavonic race

in general, which appeals to political minds because its tendencies

are towards moderation and good sense, and at the same time offers the

charm of a certain poetic mysticism to the young and to the mass of

the lower orders. It is, then, the originality of this movement which

also constitutes its strength, for it reveals sources of vitality ever

new, in a race which has found in misfortune nothing but a generous

incentive.

It is this same originality which in like manner has placed Russia in a

position of singular difficulty, when opposed to a popular awakening of

this sort; for this is no simple internal strife, but by considerations

of humanity and of right it forms part of a crisis peculiar to the

times, and of an order of things of European interest and extent.

It is said that after the first bloody scenes at Warsaw in this month

of February, the Emperor Alexander II. being told that some of the

people had fallen victims, asked immediately what loss their army

had sustained, and what quantity of arms had been taken from the

insurgents? He was told in reply that there was no loss in the army,

and that it had not been possible to seize the arms of a populace

who had none, and would not have any. The Emperor, it is said, was

greatly surprised; and this astonishment at the beginning explains the

vacillations of Russia, and the hesitation which is to be observed in

her conduct. She seemed at first to fluctuate between all sorts of

policies.

She gave up some of her officials, who were the most pointed at by

public animadversion, and, if I may use the expression, only seemed

to repress the movement by mistake. She made some concessions; she

drew the programme of a new organisation; she promised a variety of

reforms; she accepted the popular delegation as an auxiliary--accepted

even the help of the Agricultural Society itself. But presently both

delegation and Society were dissolved. Agitation was allowed to

increase by her indecision, till the scenes of April 8th mark the

fresh starting-point of a repressive policy. _Physically_, no doubt,

Russia can repress and disperse the manifestations of Warsaw, and she

can prevent the population wearing mourning for its dead; but when

that is accomplished, I ask whether, _morally_, the question will

be one whit less living or less important--whether it will be less

_oppressive_--for the politics of Russia?

Truly, Russia finds herself to-day in a strange and a serious dilemma.

She must make her choice. She may begin over again in Poland her

policy of the last thirty years; and she may even push that system to

extremity. It may be the interest of Prussia and of Austria to keep the

Tzar to this plan; because they are always uneasy at the reappearance

in the Kingdom of a centre of attraction for the parts of Poland which

they possess. This is their interest (and it is odd enough that it

should be so, because the strength of Prussia lies only in ideas of

nationality and of liberalism); but is this the true interest of Russia

at this juncture of the world’s affairs? Russia has only to revert to

her own counsels and to her own traditions to find in them incentives

to a more equitable policy. The Emperor Alexander II. has only to

open his mind to those ideas which are most intimately connected

with the constitution of the kingdom of Poland, and with the epoch at

which the Emperor Alexander I. founded it, saying to the Poles, ‘You

will preserve your language; you will have your laws, your army. Your

restoration is defined by the most solemn treaties.’

If the world of to-day appeared such as it did thirty years ago, it

might be possible that any physical victory should have the sad power

of deadening in an unhappy nation its undying feelings, of at least

discouraging it, and of adjourning to another day the solution of a

question so often agitated. But to-day, against the continuance of

an oppressive policy, are ranged the general sense of Europe, the

principles of right, the interests of Russia in her other combinations

and alliances, the irremediable decadence of the treaties of 1815,

forgotten by the governments themselves even before they were abrogated

by the peoples which returned, as it were, to life; and, finally,

this movement on the part of united Poland--a movement which can

but be accelerated, or kept up, by the new Diets in Galicia, by the

incessant way in which the deputies of Posen remind the parliament of

their country, and by the attitude of moral resistance assumed by the

population of Warsaw. Be it what it may, there is certainly something

moving, and morally important, in this determination of a people to

_live_, and to preserve in itself the inviolable inheritance of its

patriotic faith.

In the legends of the Saints it is related that, one day, in the age of

martyrdom, some Christians had been assembled upon the ice of a frozen

river, and that they were there abandoned, alone and naked, to all the

severities of the air, having also no food to eat. Offers were made

to them from the shore of clothes, and of delicious viands, if they

would abjure their religion. Some of them yielded to the temptation,

and, when they touched the banks, perished. The others, immovable under

trial, invoked the Divine mercy, and were miraculously saved; for there

fell from heaven upon them both food and clothing. In this behold a

touching picture of a nation which suffers, but which will not allow

itself to be tempted, and which sends up to heaven such a cry of faith

as shall melt the rigour of its adverse fortune.

A YEAR OF AGITATION IN POLAND.

(April 1861-2.)

For some years past we have witnessed one of the most affecting and

instructive sights--the breaking up, if we may say so, of an order

of events, where the confused and dispersed elements join again, as

from some mysterious and invincible unity in themselves. That which

once appeared impossible becomes a startling reality, and perspectives

suddenly open themselves such as our generation would hardly have

allowed itself even to think of.

We have seen public right itself, or that which, at least, bears its

name, giving way, and leaving a passage for those national and popular

causes which agitate the world, and which are the harbingers of a new

way of thinking. It is vain now to attempt to divide those national

causes which appeal so strongly to public opinion--vain now to grant

everything to one and deny everything to another--to limit justice

to opportunity or to fitness of time or place. Policy may have its

seasons, its measures, and its predilections, but at bottom _right_

must exist everywhere, or it exists nowhere; and, from its one source,

it must apply to all those peoples who aspire to the purest and the

most legitimate of conquests--the conquest of themselves--as also to

all those movements which, arising at one and the same time, form parts

of a general situation, intimately and profoundly characterised by one

universal work of transformation.

We must guard against mistakes. What we behold is no vulgar crisis,

which may end in an ordinary peace: it is a warfare between two orders

of things, between two principles; and it was proclaimed the other day,

in a French Assembly, to be the new right--_the right of peoples_--and,

when opposed to this, old political combinations are reduced to act

laboriously and uneasily on the defensive. It is the question which

agitates the modern world: the problem which, in the East as in the

West, in the North as in the South, shows itself under a thousand

different and startling shapes.

Certainly one of the most curious of these episodes--one of the most

moving of these contemporary spectacles--is that dramatic _tête-à-tête_

which, for the space of a year, has been carried on in Northern Europe

between those two very unequal powers, Russia and Poland; where the one

is embarrassed by its strength and its political traditions, and where

the other makes an impregnable buckler of its rights, and of its very

weakness. Nothing has been wanting to the play. Unforeseen events,

passionate originality in demonstrations, tragic scenes--all have been

supplied, together with those mysterious fatalities which so often

make a perfect drama out of the affairs of men. This drama is laid in

the heart of a country: it has its colours and its catastrophes; and

across its stage there passes, like some chorus of old, a whole nation,

which sends up to heaven its supplications and complaint. For a whole

year has the spectacle been seen of a moral movement, perfectly new in

its character, confronting a policy which is astonished to find itself

so weak that, while possessed of so many means of physical power, it

resorts to all expedients of apparent concession and of inefficacious

repression, and uses both measures alike without conviction. After

a year all seems again to have settled into silence. Outward

manifestations certainly have ceased, but still the demonstration has

been made. That which had been supposed to be dead was found to be

still full of life. That assimilation of Polish provinces, which Russia

believed to be accomplished, was found to be not even begun; and Europe

suddenly saw that Polish question arise which brings in its train such

prodigious difficulties, and in which are involved at once the fate of

a nation, the policy of a great empire, and the balance of power in

the West. By some vague instinct, Europe felt that she had not yet got

rid of that problem which is, doubtless, so strangely complicated by

the multiplicity of rules and of _régimes_ spread over Poland; which

changes its shapes according to the chances of dismemberments and of

treaties; which is not the same in Posen as in Cracovia, at Warsaw

as at Wilna, in the Kingdom, in Lithuania, or in the Ukraine; but to

which one national sentiment, identical and vital in all the parts,

has communicated an indissoluble unity. This character truly belongs

to a question at once so energetic, so simple, and so complex, which

sums up in itself the strifes of to-day, which is too often believed to

have been stifled under the weight of impossibilities, and which comes

to light again at a time when any palpitations of oppressed patriotism

was least to be expected. I wish to set forth this question in its most

recent explosion, in its elements, and in its progress, as well as in

its relation to all that is in motion or in preparation in Europe, and

even in the very heart of Russia.

An event which dates back to no very remote period is the source of

many results which belong to the present day. I mean the Crimean war,

which doubtless did nothing directly or ostensibly for Poland, but was

very near (nearer than perhaps is supposed) doing a great deal for

her. At the time when that great strife ended, the name of Poland, as

we are now aware, ought to have been heard in the Congress of Paris,

along with that of Italy. France and England were agreed, and the day

was fixed, but the dexterity of the Russian plenipotentiaries, and of

Count Orlof in particular, eluded this inconvenient call. They made it

the interest of the West to be silent, and they promised far more than

ever was asked of them, on condition that Europe would leave the Tzar

at liberty to make none but spontaneous concessions to the Poles. This

is no longer a secret; for Lord Clarendon said one day in Parliament,

in reply to Lord Lyndhurst (that old champion of liberal causes), ‘We

had serious reasons for believing that the Emperor of Russia was, with

regard to Poland, generous and kind. We were obliged to admit that the

Emperor was not only disposed to publish a general amnesty, but even to

give back to the Poles some of their national institutions; and while

they received guarantees for the exercise of their religion, public

education in Poland was also to be established on a more liberal and

national footing. We also believed that we were warranted to hope that

Russia was about to renounce for ever the severe system which she had

hitherto pursued; and, moved by these convictions, we ceased for the

future any discussion of the question.’ Count Orlof gave promises,

the Congress of Paris kept silence, and scarcely one month had passed

before the Emperor Alexander II., while promulgating an amnesty which

was nothing more than a cruel deception (according to Lord Clarendon’s

own expression), addressed, at the same time, two allocutions to the

Polish nobility at Warsaw, wherein he harshly said, ‘I expect that the

order established by my father is to be maintained: so, gentlemen,

above all, we will, if you please, have no dreams--no dreams! The

happiness of the Polish people depends on its entire fusion with the

people of my empire; what my father did, was well done, and I will

maintain it: my reign shall be the continuation of his. In preserving

to Poland her rights, and her interests, such as my father granted her,

I have the unalterable wish to do good, and to favour the prosperity of

the country. It rests with you to make this last possible for me, and

you alone will be responsible if my intentions fail, on account of your

chimerical resistance.’ When one of the Marshals of the nobility seemed

about to reply, the Emperor turned and said, ‘Have you understood me?

It is pleasanter for me to reward than to punish; but know this, once

for all, gentlemen, that when it is necessary I shall know how to keep

down, and to punish, and it will be seen that I punish severely.’ This

happened in the month of May 1856, immediately after the Congress of

Paris.

It is not without reason that I recall to-day a vain attempt at

negotiation broken off by an illusory promise. It determines the

events which have since arisen, in the same way that the debate at

the Congress of Paris has governed events in Italy; it also in some

sort puts on the recent crisis in Poland a mark of European sympathy,

and proves an intelligent wish, while it shows further how Russia had

conducted herself up to the time that this crisis arrived. ‘What my

father did, he did well!’ an expression which was perhaps highly filial

on the part of the Emperor Alexander II., but which was certainly

an imprudent and impolitic dictum. What was really that _order_

established by Nicholas which he promised to maintain?

I do not refer now to the guarantees by which the treaties of Vienna

had striven to surround a nationality which they abandoned; I do not

speak of the constitution of 1815, the work of the Emperor Alexander

I., but of the _statut_ granted by the Emperor Nicholas himself in

1832--a _statut_ which was as a punishment, the penalty of a defeat

sustained by Poland; and what had become of that? It was M. Tymowski,

a Russian Minister of State, who last year, at the commencement of

the affair, told us what _had_ become of it. In a private report he

stated that this _statut_ had never been either abrogated, or put into

execution. Of all the new authorities which it created, councils for

towns, councils for palatinates and provincial assemblies, ‘with the

right of deliberating on questions of general interest in the kingdom,’

not one has ever existed. There ought also to have been a Council of

State, but that probably was held to be either too revolutionary a

measure, or too visible a sign of autonomy. So in 1841 this Council

of State was quietly replaced by two new departments of the directing

Senate of St. Petersburg, which were called the ninth and tenth

departments, and were transplanted to Warsaw. ‘In a word,’ added M.

Tymowski, ‘it may be said that since 1831 the kingdom of Poland has

been given up entirely to bureaucracy, and that without any regard

to the _statut_ of 1831, it has also remained under the exclusive

influence of officials, without the participation of any of its

inhabitants, who are in this manner rendered incapable of sharing in

the Government.’

It would, indeed, be useless to tell how bureaucracy and officials

have for the last thirty years swayed the Government of Poland: and

I shall content myself with reminding my readers and the public,

that one day the Emperor Nicholas did ‘with his own hand and with a

quiet mind’ (adds his minister) order the _transplantation_ to the

Caucasus of forty-five thousand families, all ‘formerly Polish gentry,

but bearing henceforward the name of freemen and burghers,’ as it is

phrased in this strange Government language. We have often heard that

a painful yoke is laid by their rulers on the people of Lombardy, of

the pontifical States, or of the old kingdom of the two Sicilies: nor

is this said without reason; but we must also remember that there is

a country where, in the daylight of this present century, it has been

possible to _transplant_ forty-five thousand families guilty of no

other crime than of being suspected of patriotism, and of ‘exciting the

suspicion of the Government.’

From this specimen we may understand how unintentionally cruel and

how mournfully deceptive were those words of Alexander II.--‘All that

my father did, he did well’--words which were also, at least, an

unfortunate answer to that expression of European sympathy which had

been checked at the threshold of this Congress of Paris in 1856. It

has been the mistake of all Russian policy for the last thirty years,

to believe that an absence of all law means _order_, and to suppose

that the omnipotence of force is at once illimitable and undefined. No

doubt for the moment such policy succeeds. It can command silence, it

can veil difficulties, and adjourn the discussion of them to another

day. But it brings affairs at last into that impossible situation,

of which illegality is the essence, and where we find a new nation,

independent of all organisation and of all hierarchies, rising in

spite of a monstrous system of repression--a nation which, as M.

Tymowski expresses it, ‘is undistrainable and yet ingenious in making

arms for itself out of everything, even out of its own contempt of

death.’ Poland, though beyond the bounds of the law, has a profound

sense of law, and this M. Tymowski again acknowledges. Having no

public representation she has arranged one for herself, for she had

that Agricultural Society, which at a given day proved itself to be a

sort of national representation. No regular outlet was provided for

the utterance of her wishes, instincts, or wants, but she has thrown

herself into a passionate worship of her traditions, her popular

festivals, and religious rites. Indeed, the time has come in which

she has occupied herself for a year in reviewing her anniversaries

and her recollections. She could not, certainly, dream of engaging in

an armed strife, but she retired into herself; she appealed to moral

power, and opened her soul to the strangest of all sentiments--that

of voluntary sacrifice--till a whole nation adopted that terrible

argument in Descartes’ fashion, ‘we die, _ergo_, we live;’ and is it

not a new and a surprising piece of reasoning, if we understand it

aright? By all this Russia is placed in an extraordinary dilemma;

this unexpected resurrection brings all her errors before her. She is

obliged to punish a sedition which is not illegal, to make war upon

peaceful manifestations, on religious services and hymns, on mourning

apparel and inoffensive emblems; she has nothing to oppose to them but

force, and feels therefore all the powerlessness of force itself. The

same causes have impressed this movement: for though European events

may have hastened it, though the accession of Alexander II. and the

internal disorders of Russia may have favoured it, it is not less the

result of a past of thirty years, not less the effect of a policy of

which the whole fatality has not yet perhaps been exhausted.

The movement is extremely characteristic in this respect--that it is

born in the heart of the country, and that it is independent alike of

complicity with her emigrant children, or of any impulse from without.

Immediately after the Congress of Paris, the Emperor Alexander held

this language to the Polish nobility--‘No dreams, gentlemen! no

dreams!’ and from that moment did the national sentiment of Poland

begin gradually to expand, till it broke out in February 1861. Several

symptoms indicated the unexpected awakening that was to follow. When

the sovereigns met at Warsaw, in 1860, the Emperor Alexander, before

returning to St. Petersburg, wished to show himself to the five German

princes who accompanied him in all the brilliancy of Polish popularity.

He was to be in Wilna. Now in Lithuania, the first manifestation for

the enfranchisement of the serfs had taken place, and the Emperor had

returned thanks for it to the Lithuanian nobility. These circumstances

all seemed auspicious, and the Governor of Lithuania was ordered to

get up a ball. It was, as far as its externals went, simply a ball;

but no one knows what an official ball is to the Poles, where the

splendour of the fête covers so many hurts, so many thousands of

secret wounds. In his ‘Aieux,’ Mickiewicz has introduced an official

ball into that circle of Hell in which he paints all the sufferings of

the Poles. General Nazimof made the most heroic exertions, and spared

no persuasions among the Lithuanian nobility; but nevertheless he

completely failed. The ladies declined the invitations; the gentry said

that, though willing to pay the expenses of this Russian festivity,

they should not appear at it; and there was nothing left for the

Emperor but to refuse to go to the ball upon which General Nazimof had

lavished so much useless zeal; and he hardly made any stay in Wilna.

At Warsaw, where the three crowned heads held a meeting which seemed to

personify all the disasters of the land, things looked even worse. It

must be said that, to choose Warsaw as a place of meeting between these

three masters of Poland--the Emperor of Russia, the Emperor of Austria,

and the King of Prussia--and to choose it, too, just when all Europe

was ringing with the enfranchisement of Italy, was to throw a challenge

to our unhappy nation; nor was it long before popular feeling took up

a challenge which was the second it had received from Alexander--his

first having been that address to the nobility of Warsaw which he made

after the Congress of Paris.

After this, demonstrations increased.

One religious service followed the other, in memory of the

patriot-poets, Mickiewicz, Krasinski, and Slovaçki; and on November

29th, 1860, that song was heard, for the first time, which for a

year has been the impassioned watchword of the multitude, which has

echoes in cathedrals, and which has gone up from the humblest country

churches--that ‘_Boze_ cos Polske’--‘Give us our country! Oh, Lord!

give us our liberty!’ In a short time, the whole face of affairs had

changed, and an electric thrill ran through the country. Perhaps it

ought to be called a revolution; it certainly was a moral revolution,

and it revealed that which had hardly as yet been suspected--the

existence of a nation, unimpaired by suffering and by trial. To be

a revolution, it had a strange beginning. There was no violence,

no bloody intentions, no insurrections; but there were psalms, and

prayers, and manifestations, at once enthusiastic and regulated; and

there was an outburst, as energetic as it was unexpected, of that

irresistible force which is called the soul of a nation.

Everything converges to that month of February 1861; and then it

was that this Polish insurrection really assumed the character of a

passionate drama, full of startling originality. The 25th was the

anniversary of that formidable battle of Grochow, in which the Poles,

in 1831, disputed for the mastery with Russia during three whole days.

Since the 21st, the Agricultural Society, founded by Count Andrew

Zamoyski, and so rapidly popularised throughout the country, had held a

session to deliberate on the definitive accession of the peasantry to

property. From other quarters, the Polish students--who had come from

Kiev, from Moscow, and from Dorpat, as to a secret rendezvous--might

be heard agitating, and demanding a national university. To ask for

a more liberal education, to effect the union of all classes by the

abolition of the last vestiges of serfdom, and to commemorate mournful

and patriotic anniversaries--these were the subjects which preoccupied

all minds. No doubt other thoughts mingled with them. The idea of

presenting an address to the Emperor asking for a constitution began

to be ventilated; and, oddly enough, it was warmly advocated by a man

who was soon to play a part in these events--the Marquis Wiélopolski.

He became excessively excited, and went to Count Zamoyski to beg him to

take the initiative in this manifestation; but Count Andrew refused.

He was the firm and vigilant guide of his society, and he would not

consent to alter its nature. Moreover, it was repugnant to him to

place, as the Marquis proposed to do, the claims of his country under

the auspices of the treaties of 1815.

What was Russia about all this time? Quite disconcerted, and more

astonished than enlightened by what she saw happening under her eyes,

she waited, and day by day the movement seemed to slip away from

her. At that time she was represented in Warsaw by Prince Michael

Gortchakof, the Lieutenant of the Tzar--a man who was a good soldier,

and who had shown a great deal of vigour in the defence of Sebastopol.

He had lived fear many years at Warsaw, when head of the Staff to

Prince Paskievitch; he knew Poland, and he liked living in it. To his

soldierly nature extreme measures of repression were repugnant, and

it troubled him to have recourse to them. But unfortunately, in the

heart of the administration of which he was the ostensible chief,

one man was, under shelter of the Prince’s name, omnipotent--M.

Muchanof, Minister of the Interior, of public instruction, and of

religion. He was a Russian of the old school of Nicholas the Tzar--a

vulgar instrument of that inflexible system which had no other object

but the denationalisation of Poland. The dismissal of Count Skarbek,

the Minister of Finance, had been effected by him, because the Count

was an enlightened man, an author of celebrity, who had entertained

the revolutionary notion of asking (as for a right) for a college at

Warsaw. M. Muchanof was at war, in short, with everything that looked

like an awakening or an act of individual life in the country--with

Temperance Leagues, with the Agricultural Society, and with a taste for

a more liberal style of education. The only exception he could make was

in favour of the School of Arts. ‘Let them paint, by all means,’ he

would say, ‘and then they will not think.’

Between the gradually excited population of Poland and Russia, when

thus represented and thus divided in her councils, a dialogue was to be

commenced, which, stretching over a year, was to be furnished with such

bloody interludes that the very Russian generals themselves seemed to

grow weary, and to feel a secret aversion to the parts given them to

act.

Nothing, at such a conjuncture, was wanted but one spark. The morning

of February 25th dawned dark and misty. They were to go that day

to pray for the slain of the battle of Grochow, and, from an early

hour, the populace, impelled by one spontaneous passion, thronged the

streets. An immense procession was soon formed; they marched without

disorder, and with torches in their hands. Before them went a banner,

with the white eagle. As they walked they sang the hymn, ‘Swiety

Boze’--‘Holy Lord God Almighty, have pity upon us; be pleased to give

us back our own country. Holy Virgin Mary, Queen of Poland, pray for

us.’ Up to this time, the Government had done nothing to stop the

manifestation (it had not even been prevented), when suddenly Colonel

Trepow, the head of the Police, appeared, and threw two squadrons of

the armed police upon this dense crowd. The multitude fell on their

knees, and continued their psalm, while being cut down by the troops.

More than forty persons were wounded. At this moment the Agricultural

Society happened to be sitting, and a violent emotion was produced

there by the intelligence that an inoffensive mob had been massacred.

Count Zamoyski, the President, mastering his own emotion, endeavoured

to preserve calmness, and, putting an end to the sitting, he repaired

to Prince Gortchakof, who seemed surprised, and certainly showed

conciliatory intentions. The Russian officers were indignant at the

tasks assigned to them, and one of them, General Liprandi, went so far

as to say that, as long as he commanded the infantry, he would not

permit them to be marched upon unarmed men. The truth is, that one more

such victory as that of February 25th would have made everything look

very doubtful for Russia. The work of thirty years vanished, before the

apparition of a people ready to die undefended. The whole town was in

inexpressible anxiety, and on the following day mourning was worn for

the victims of the previous day.

But it must not be supposed that any signs of weakness entered into

the popular emotion. On the contrary, a curious excitement filled all

hearts; and, by the 27th, arrangements were made for a new funeral

service, in honour of some patriots hung by the Russians, and of

Count Zawisza in particular. In the Church of the Carmelites and

its vicinity more than 30,000 persons assembled; and, when mass was

said, this immense procession unrolled and marched to the palace of

the Agricultural Society, which, for the last two days, had been

besought to sign an address to the Emperor. This Count Zamoyski always

resisted; and he certainly showed more intelligent heroism, above all,

more patriotic foresight, by this resistance, than by yielding to any

premature haste. He did not wish to compromise an institution which

might again do effectual service to the national cause, and which was

the only representative body of his nation. So, on the approach of the

crowd, Count Andrew took the plan of closing a session which had been

so strangely agitated. But just round this point the whole affair

centred, while, outside, squadrons of Cossacks drove the multitude

before them at the point of their swords, and pursued them into the

very churches. Hardly had the members of the Agricultural Society left

their palace than a murderous fire was opened upon them; also a strange

execution, for which the order had been given by General Zabolotsky,

and in which there probably was no preconcerted design, since, in the

Russian opposition of that day, every measure seemed disunited, and the

work of chance. But the result of this attack was not the less fatal;

ten persons were killed, and more than sixty were wounded.

A curious scene then took place. The exasperated crowd seized upon

one of the corpses--one which was still warm--and they carried it to

the house of Count Andrew Zamoyski. A feeling of reproach probably

entered into this popular act. It meant, ‘Why do you abandon us at the

moment in which we are slain?’ But this was a popular error. If Count

Zamoyski, in his capacity of a public character, and when invested

with a title which was almost official, had refused to compromise an

institution which, in his eyes, represented the only lawful power in

the country, not the less did there live in him a patriotism which

could be both firm and manly. He received the body thus brought to

him, and, in a voice of great emotion, he replied to the crowd, ‘I

thank you for the mark of esteem which you have given me. Bring in the

corpse of this martyr, and I shall know how to honour it.’ He had a

_chapelle ardente_ arranged in his house, and there, for two days, the

body lay in state. By the incidents of his past life, by his name, by

his active devotion to all his country’s interests, by the attitude he

preserved towards the Russians, so proud and so noble, and yet ever so

moderate, Count Andrew proved himself to be the true chief, the wise

and energetic guide of a movement, which found in his character its

highest personification.

In this, the second day of bloodshed, which side had conquered? Russia

certainly had not, for never, perhaps, did any power suffer such

complete eclipse, while boasting of such apparent strength.

After the events of the 27th, Prince Gortchakof called his officers

and chief functionaries together. The Archbishop soon appeared,

complaining of the violation of the churches; and there came also

several dignitaries of the town, who had held a meeting at the house

of one of the principal bankers, M. Kronenberg. There was likewise

Count Zamoyski himself, with two other delegates of the Agricultural

Society, MM. Ostrowski and Poloçki, all holding discourses, of which

the tenor was mournful and proud. Prince Gortchakof did not disguise

from himself either the gravity of the situation, or the odium of the

part assigned to the army. What is more, he absolutely denied having

given the pitiless orders which had just been executed, and he let

fall a curious expression as he did so. ‘Do you,’ he said, ‘take me

for an Austrian? I have given one order, and one only, and that is,

that even on the production of an order signed by my own hand, the

citadel is not to be given up to you.’ What was most essential at

this moment was to appease wrath, to calm men’s minds, and to efface

the late bloodshed. Prince Gortchakof showed himself ready for the

most important transactions. He was ready to dismiss the head of the

police, Colonel Trepow; ready for an enquiry into the conduct of

General Zabolotsky; to withdraw the military to their barracks till the

victims of the 27th had been buried; and also to create a Commission

of Public Safety, under the auspices of Count Zamoyski, with the

concurrence of a Russian much esteemed and honoured in Warsaw, Marquis

Paulueri. He accepted the offer of the students to act as the police

of the town; and by that evening an address to the Emperor was in

general circulation. Thousands of signatures were rapidly affixed to

this document, which was the energetic expression of the griefs and

of the wishes of the Polish nation. ‘Our nation,’ it declared, ‘which

used to be governed by liberal institutions, has, for the last sixty

years, endured the cruellest sufferings. Without any organ for sending

up to your throne the expression of our pains and of our need, we are

forcibly constrained to have no other utterances than the cries of

those martyrs which are daily offered as a holocaust. A country, once

the centre of civilisation to its neighbours of the West, cannot, also,

develope itself, either morally or physically, while its Church, its

legislature, its public education, and its whole social organisation,

do not bear the stamp of its national genius and of its historical

traditions.’ The signatures of the Archbishop and of the Grand Rabbi

headed this address; and those Poles who were in Government offices, as

well as the Marshals of the nobility, tendered their resignations, in

order to join in the manifestation.

To tell the truth, the whole face of affairs had altered in a very

short space of time. Two days had sufficed to show a nationality, fresh

born and full of energy, pitted against a government which seemed

struck with paralysis. Poland, that phantom which had not been allowed

to appear at the Congress of Paris, and which the Emperor Alexander,

during the interview of the sovereigns at Warsaw, had banished as an

inopportune vision, was now suddenly alive, and become palpable to

all. Henceforward, all distinctions of classes were to be effaced by

one profound feeling of solidarity; and the very bullets of February

27th had cemented this union by striking, as they did, persons of all

classes, of all religions, of all ages, and of every sex.

With what weapons did this reviving nation arm itself? Poland had

no arms: she would not have any; or rather she had them but of one

kind. She had a passive heroism which amounted to enthusiasm. She

had a fanaticism of self-sacrifice, as might be seen in that address

to the workpeople of Warsaw. The mark by which her sons recognised

each other was mourning array; and from the first days of the month

of March 1861, a proclamation throughout the whole country declared

black to be the national colour. ‘In all the parts of ancient Poland,’

ran the notification, ‘mourning will be put on, and worn for an

indefinite time.... For nearly a century our emblem has been the Crown

of Thorns! That coronal adorned the coffins of our brethren, and you

have all understood its meaning. It signifies patience under suffering,

self-sacrifice, pardon, and deliverance. We invite every Pole, whatever

be his creed, to spread these words in countries even the most remote.’

A population like this, when for a moment its own mistress, had a

pride in avoiding riot and excess; and it even respected the Russian

soldiers in Warsaw. It was the students who on March 2nd kept the peace

during the funerals of those who had fallen victims on February 27th;

and at these obsequies, where patriotism acted for the police, more

than 100,000 persons were present. On the other side, it was quite the

contrary: everything among the Russian authorities was in confusion,

and they appeared to be the discomfited spectators of a movement

which they could not check, and which was wholly incomprehensible

to them. Prince Gortchakof himself was visibly affected by this

extraordinary situation, and he was divided between astonishment and

the strange recurrence of a soldier’s instinct who feels himself to be

powerless, because he seeks an adversary but cannot find him. Nothing

can better pourtray both the character of this Polish movement and

the embarrassment of the Russian power, than a conversation which

took place between Prince Gortchakof and Count Zamoyski, on the 3rd

of March, the day after the interment of the victims of the 27th of

February. The Prince Lieutenant began by thanking the President of the

Agricultural Society, with really good grace, for the order which,

during the ceremony of the previous day, had been maintained in the

town.

‘The whole town obeys you,’ he said. Then suddenly becoming animated,

and having changed his train of thought, he continued, ‘This cannot go

on; and besides, I have now got troops, and I am not afraid of you.’

‘We are ready to receive your bullets,’ replied Count Andrew.

‘No, no, we will fight!’

‘We shall not fight; but you may murder us if you please.’

‘If you want arms, I will give you some!’

‘We will not use them.’

There, in truth, lay the secret of this movement, which was intangible

from its moral nature, and which was terrible because it was vague.

The address from Warsaw reached St. Petersburg; the Emperor Alexander

read it out loud before several members of his family.

‘But these Poles ask for nothing,’ remarked one.

‘That is just what is so serious about it,’ replied the Emperor; and

his retort was that of a sensible man.

If this perilous situation was not to continue, only one course could

be pursued by Russia. She must arrange a termination, and reply to

this passive revolution in Poland by sincere, efficient, and ready

concessions. Russia did not do this, and she lost a month in delay.

As to her sincerity, it was doubtful, to say the least of it. What

was most obvious was her embarrassment; and by the confusion in which

she moved, her policy allowed this embarrassment to be only too well

perceived. At Warsaw, while Prince Gortchakof made some concessions,

Count Zamoyski was challenged, but did not reply. A marvellous unity of

wills kept order in the town, and the authorities waited for a solution

of the difficulty to be sent from St. Petersburg. M. Muchanof, still

master of the Ministry of the Interior, was inspired by the melancholy

policy which Austria had followed in Galicia, and he did send out a

clandestine circular, urging the peasants to rise upon their landlords.

The Jews discovered this circular, and so much indignation was excited

by it, that Prince Gortchakof was soon obliged to dismiss M. Muchanof

from his office, and he left Warsaw amidst the yells and hisses of the

populace. The affair, considered in all its bearings, is a strange mark

of the persistent contradictions which distinguished Russian measures,

and distinguished them at a time when to be sincere would have been to

be judicious.

Even in St. Petersburg no one knew what to do. Time was gained, and

then it was lost; and when the Emperor Alexander did, on the last

day of March, resolve to send to Warsaw a plan for new reforms, the

movement had by that time become too consistent; the minds of men

were too strongly excited, and too much made up, to be contented with

such timid and equivocal concessions as ill befitted the gravity of

the case. For of what did the offered reforms consist? It is true,

that they suppressed those two departments of the Senate which sat

at Warsaw, and which were the signs of the complete assimilation of

Poland with Russia. They promised the election of provincial councils,

of district councils; they offered a new organisation of public

instruction, with a creation of a Faculty of Rights, and with more

respect for the Polish language. Finally, they summoned the Marquis

Wiélopolski to the direction of public education; the Marquis being

a Pole. This was always something, although it did not even entirely

come up to the _statut_ of Nicholas. And what at bottom was wanting,

was a guarantee for the sincere adoption of a really liberal policy,

which should be carried out by men truly devoted to their country, and

animated by a national spirit. Unfortunately, to the suspicions of the

Poles (suspicions which were only too well founded) Russia replied by

a system of permanent contradictions, one which for the last year has

shown itself to be never nearer to reaction than when there was a talk

about concessions. Concessions so offered were for the edification of

Europe, which looked on. The facts remain the same, or rather they

become worse, and in appearing to yield to this all-powerful movement

of public opinion, it was the object of the Russian Government to stain

it, and to represent the movement as the work of a few incorrigibly

factious persons. But they seemed to wish to treat with this reviving

nationality, and on the 1st of April the plan of reform arrived

from St. Petersburg was published; six days later, however, they

dissolved, without any warning, that Agricultural Society in which

the country beheld its image, which had never interfered except to

make peace, which Prince Gortchakof had himself thanked, and which was

now done away with, on the strange pretext ‘that, under the present

circumstances, and in consequence of the position which it had latterly

assumed, it had ceased to answer its original purpose.’ Of all those

bodies of constables and delegates which had existed, and by means of

which for a whole month peace had been maintained in the town, not one

was allowed to remain. All, with a sort of impatience, were swept away,

while proclamations were multiplied and troops were hastily advanced to

Warsaw.

What was the result?

Public opinion resented as a provocation the dissolution of the

Agricultural Society, and the minds of the people rose with

indignation, not against the _reforms_, which might, perhaps, have

been accepted, but against that double-faced policy in which they

could see nothing but menaces; and peace thenceforward became more

and more impossible between Russia and a people which, as M. Tymowski

said in his secret report, was ‘full of life and of obstinacy, and

deeply penetrated by a sense of law. Everything,’ he added, ‘depended

on the good faith observed with them.’ On the 7th of April, 1861, an

immense crowd went to the cemetery to pray for the slain of February.

Later in the evening they marched to the square at the castle, which

was occupied by troops, and there with loud cries demanded the repeal

of the order by which the Agricultural Society had been dissolved.

But this crowd was so far from threatening any violence, that the

military did not continue to keep the ground, and they dispersed at

last, promising to reassemble on the following evening. Accordingly,

in the evening of the 8th, a still larger assemblage repeated the

manifestation of the preceding day, in front of the castle. The Prince

Lieutenant himself came down and mixed with the crowd in order to

appease it. He asked them what they wanted; and the response was

unanimous, being contained in these significant words, ‘We want our

country.’

For the rest, nothing in this excited concourse of men, women, and

children betrayed any aggressive thoughts, or any intentions of strife.

They were warned that they must disperse; but with dark passion they

replied, ‘You may kill us, but we will not move;’ and before the troops

drawn up in order of battle, they remained impassive, till suddenly

a post-chaise happened to pass, and the postilion played on his horn

the air of Dombrowski’s legions: ‘No, never shall Poland perish!’

Immediately an enthusiastic cry burst from every breast, and as the

populace fell on their knees, a movement was perceptible through

the whole crowd. Did the troops believe that they were about to be

attacked, or did they obey a command? Were they decided by the plain

and conclusive reason, that a resolution to fire had been adopted the

evening before, because a stop must be put to this state of affairs?

However it may have been, an instantaneous fire was opened. While some

squadrons of cavalry received orders to charge, fifteen volleys from

the infantry made many bloody openings in the mass of defenceless

beings, who now found themselves hemmed in on every side. While being

cut down, the crowd continued to kneel, and to pray. The women and the

children were grouped together on their knees round an image of the

Virgin, at the extreme end of the square, and there the people remained

till late into the night; so late that the troops had been previously

drawn off the ground. It is certain that more than fifty persons had

perished, and that the number of the wounded was immense; but darkness

has always been allowed to hang over the numbers who fell on that

night. An eye witness wrote with emotion: ‘Never shall I be able to

make you understand this unparalleled contempt of death, which is so

enthusiastic that it animates men, women, and children. Old soldiers,

accustomed to being under fire, assure me that never, when so close,

have the most solid troops preserved a heroism as calm and invincible

as this crowd has displayed when furiously charged by cavalry and under

fire.’

It was, indeed, a strange insurrection. The authorities in Warsaw had

no difficulty in quelling it; but it rendered every future transaction

more difficult, for it had placed between Russia and Poland a barrier

of invincible suspicion. It was a misfortune for Russia, that, while

gaining these melancholy victories, she added nothing to the security

of her rule, and she certainly added nothing to her strength. Her

difficulties were, however, greatly increased by them, and she remained

weighed down by the weight of her own policy. It is true, indeed, that

even after the 8th of April she maintained the reforms which she had

already promulgated; but the logic of her situation was, that she was

at war with the most intangible thing in the world, with the soul of a

nation. Russia could not lay her finger upon any conspiracy, but not

the less did everything seem to threaten her, and she was constantly

obliged to invent new plans for putting down she hardly knew what. At

night no one was to go out without a lantern, and it was forbidden to

be seen walking in certain localities. Against wearing mourning the

rules were peculiarly stringent. Indeed, at one moment it was necessary

to have permission from the police to wear black. Yet the genius of the

police was at fault, and it was baffled by the provoking obstinacy in

favour of universal mourning, and of the black dresses which the Polish

ladies had adopted.

To do the Russian authorities justice, they did not feel their

consciences at ease in the matter of this war. Even when using

repressive measures they seemed to be agitated by a secret disquiet--a

feeling which declared itself in a very striking manner during the

last days of Prince Gortchakof, whom death overtook in the middle of

this conflict, only two months after the scene of the 8th of April. It

would seem almost as though the tragedies of Poland had something fatal

in them to the Russian officials. Already, they tell us, that Prince

Paskievitch, when on his death-bed, had been troubled by a sinister

apparition; for everywhere before him rose a shade, that of the mother

of Count Zawisza, who had lain at his feet to implore pardon for

her son, and who had implored it in vain. The last moments of Prince

Gortchakof were disturbed in the same way. In Warsaw it was said, that

ever after the bloody scenes of February and of April he had been vexed

by sudden hallucinations, as well as by fits of gloomy irritation. A

few days before his death, he went to the railway-station to meet his

wife, Princess Gortchakof, who was to arrive from a journey. He saw

one of the principal bankers of Warsaw, and, running up to him, he

began: ‘Oh, you there! so you play the patriot, do you? But I know how

to crush you! I shall soon make an end of your d----d students! I will

make dust of you!’ During the last days of his life, he fancied that he

constantly saw women in black, who followed him, or walked beside him.

‘Oh, the women in black! oh, the women in black! send them away,’ he

would cry. If such were the sufferings of the Prince, there were to be

others who, as we shall see, came to a yet more terrible end. The same

secret trouble was betrayed by the words of General Souchozanett, the

immediate successor of Prince Gortchakof, when, before leaving Warsaw,

he said: ‘You may accuse me of being an unsuccessful blunderer; but

you cannot say that I am a cruel man, for I have never fired upon a

single creature.’ There was a strange fatality about this system, for

it weighed upon those who carried it out, as well as upon those who

were its victims; and such as it was, after the 8th of April, it stood

complete, before the eyes of an angry and seething populace.

Throughout these events, one man made a great effort to procure a

reconciliation. His figure is not the least original, or the least

characteristic of those who meet in this drama, and I have already

named him, for he is the Marquis Wiélopolski. Ever since the 1st of

April, 1861, he had taken a preponderant place in the Councils of the

Government, and, no doubt, his part is not yet played out. During

February, as I have already said, the Marquis Wiélopolski resided in

Warsaw; and he suggested that an address should be sent to the Emperor,

wherein a constitution was to be demanded, but which should open with

an act of submission, and with a testimony of their contrition; for it

was to disallow, in some measure, the Revolution of 1830. Not having

been able to make good this idea, he refused to sign the address that

was sent to St. Petersburg, and held himself aloof from the movement.

Very shortly after, the Emperor called him to the Direction of Public

Education, and from that time he took a decisive part in all the

measures that followed. Before long, and by the dismissal of the other

directors, which was consequent upon the 8th of April, the Marquis

Wiélopolski found himself alone in the Council, and associated with all

its most rigorous proceedings. He is, perhaps, one of the most curious

types of our times, for he is a proud, contemptuous, eloquent man, a

scion of the family of the Gonzagas; and for this reason, perhaps, he

exhibits, at times, traces of the old Italian policy. He is a great

landed proprietor, and, by his different estates, is connected with

all the provinces of Poland; and he is devoted to Russia, not by

servility or interest, but by a passion of revenge which he nourishes

against the West; and his system is the result of calculation, and

of a line of policy which is powerful, although strange. In 1846,

after the massacres in Galicia, the Marquis Wiélopolski wrote that

‘Letter to Prince Metternich, by a Polish Gentleman,’ which rang with

such fiery eloquence, and which being, as it were, a new revelation,

echoed throughout Europe. The author there advised Poland to embrace

a resolution of heroic despair--to renounce, for the future, all help

from the Western Powers, all deceitful and calculating sympathy, all

cheap eloquence, all those guarantees which men have decorated with

the pompous title of ‘rights of peoples,’ and then boldly to give

herself to Russia. ‘Go to the Tzar, and say to him: We come to you, as

to the most generous of our foes; hitherto, we have belonged to you,

as slaves, by right of conquest, and from terror; to-day, we come to

you as free men, who have the courage to acknowledge that they have

been conquered.... We do not stipulate with you about conditions--to

yourself we leave it to judge when you may relax towards us the

severity of your law. We make no reserve; but in our hearts, in letters

of fire, you will read our silent prayer, this single petition, “Do not

leave unpunished the crimes which strangers have committed; and in the

blood of our brethren which has been shed, hear the Slave blood, which

cries for vengeance” ...’

In words like these, one can recognise a theorist, who is inflamed

with panslavism, and whose revenge anticipates the day, when by this

fusion, this sacrifice of the idea of national independence, this moral

suicide, the Polish race may revive in the Empire, and again, through

their intelligence, find an ascendency in the Council.

What the Marquis Wiélopolski had thought in 1846 he still thought in

1861; and he therefore kept himself apart from all attempts to warm

up the thought of nationality, as also from all the practical labours

which were to bring about a patient and invisible reorganisation of his

country; and he never would become a member of the Agricultural Society.

The Marquis now entered on his official career distinguished by all

the inflexible vigour of a character which was lofty and proud enough

to brave unpopularity among his countrymen; and, while he consented to

serve Russia, he did not the less preserve a haughty attitude towards

her. In the month of February, while agitating for the adoption of his

proposed address, he got a message from Prince Gortchakof, warning

him to take care of what he was about; he proudly replied, ‘Tell the

Prince that my boxes are filled, and that I am quite ready to start for

Siberia.’ To his compatriots he would say, ‘You are not at the height

necessary for understanding me.’ To the Russians he certainly appeared

an enigma; for they could not comprehend this Polish gentleman, who,

while a nobody in the ranks of the administration, suddenly became

a minister, who refused all interposition, and who treated directly

with the Emperor. What could such a man mean? What was the clue to his

thoughts? But it can be believed how, between Poles and Russians, he

occupied a solitary and difficult post; for the first had the greatest

antipathy to his ideas, and the second looked upon him as a phenomenon

rather more extraordinary than consolatory.

That it was possible to organise a lawful régime, the Marquis firmly

believed. For the present he had no doubt of it, and he directed all

his efforts to this end. But there is nothing that Russians understand

so little as proceeding according to law; and, upon the death of

Prince Gortchakof, this prepossession of the Marquis proved the origin

of those quarrels with the new Lieutenant-General Souchozanett, in

which the Polish gentleman was apt to have the better of the Russian,

although he also was soon to be carried away by the current of a still

more violent reaction.

This reaction was the system which Russia adopted, and which she

followed, without ever perceiving that, instead of calming and

mastering the movement, every instance of repression so added to

its energy and depth, that when, three months later, the wishes of

the government seemed to incline to a more conciliatory method, the

movement was then found to have gained head greatly.

Above all, it was found to have spread, and to have reached the

provinces which formed the ancient Poland of 1772. Scenes similar to

those of Warsaw were enacted at Wilna; and, by the application of a

uniform plan of repression, Russia, by her own acts, set a seal upon

that unity of the old Polish fatherland which it was her object to

abolish.

One of her official proclamations spoke of Lithuania, as of a province

which had always belonged to the Empire, and which had only been

for a short time subjugated by Poland. Some French papers even lent

themselves to help Russia at this juncture, and they undertook to

represent to Lithuania, to the country of Mickiewicz, of Kosciusko, and

of the Czartorynski, that it was not in any way Polish, and ought to

have nothing in common with Poland. And this it was which provoked one

of the most curious scenes of the whole strange drama--a protestation

on the part of Lithuania, under the form of a pilgrimage to Horoldo.

Horoldo is a little village beyond the river Bug, and there, more

than four centuries ago, the union of Lithuania with Poland was

accomplished. Of this union the 10th of October was the anniversary. As

early as the month of September, circulars were sent into all the parts

of the ancient Polish realm, and delegates of the people were chosen in

every place, even in Western Prussia. Everything was done that could

be done to stop these strange travellers. Those who came from beyond

the Bug were prevented from crossing the river, and those who came from

Cracow were in the same way brought up at the passage of the Vistula.

But the concourse of people was, notwithstanding these precautions,

really immense; and the roads were lined with men on horseback, with

foot passengers, with carriages of all sorts, heavy carts, tarantasses

from Podolia, and phaetons from Léopol. On the eve of October 10,

the houses, the villages, and the country seats round Horoldo, were

filled with unknown guests, who were met everywhere with the readiest

hospitalities. ‘Enter, and welcome,’ was said to all, while no one even

asked their names.

On the following day, at six o’clock in the morning, an immense

procession was formed, and when it reached the little village of

Kopylowa (half a mile from Horoldo), the crowd fell into their ranks,

and marched along in columns, singing as they went; for, though

strangers to each other’s names and faces, these men were all bound

together by the one feeling which they had in common. Now arose a

momentary doubt. Were they to go on, and so risk meeting with a bloody

reception? A cry rose, ‘We came to pray at Horoldo, let us go to

Horoldo!’ and the procession continued its march, headed by an advanced

guard of more than 200 priests and monks. But as they drew near to

Horoldo, it became apparent that a large military force was drawn up

in a half circle round the town. A feeling of inexpressible anxiety

then prevailed. No one knew what was going to happen, but not the less

they pressed steadily forward, because everything that could be called

_arms_ had already been thrown away. The violence of a commander might

at once have turned the scene into a massacre; but, happily, General

Chrustef, the Military Governor of Lublin, who was entrusted with the

defence of Horoldo, was a humane and pacific man. At the head of his

staff he advanced to meet the procession. He bowed deferentially to

the clergy, and said, ‘I have received strict and formal orders not

to allow any manifestations to take place, and the choice of means

has not been left to me, if any manifestation is attempted. Do not,

therefore, oblige me to use forcible measures; for you would surely not

wish to lay on your own consciences the responsibility of bloodshed.’

A Canon then stepped out of the ranks, and said that the multitude had

come from far, and that they could not be expected to retire without

at least having heard mass. The General thought for a moment. His

own anxiety was visible, and a terrible silence prevailed. At last,

Chrustef addressed the priest: ‘If you will pray, do it now, and

here, in the fields before the town; my orders do not go so far as to

forbid this.’ Preparations began immediately, and a rustic altar was

soon reared upon a rising ground. When all was ready, forty banners,

representing all the provinces of ancient Poland, were unfurled, and

above them all floated a great flag, with the united arms of Lithuania

and of Poland.

The scene was a splendid one, and it was lit by a glorious sunshine.

When mass had been said, a Basilican priest (of the United Greek

Church) rose, and thus addressed the crowd: ‘Behold to-day, assembled

for the first time, the mutilated members of our beloved Poland! In our

national history there is no better festival, and no memory more pure,

than that which we have met to celebrate to-day. Look at that forest;

count its trees; and for each tree that you count you may find upon the

Polish soil the grave of a hero, of a martyr who has given himself for

our liberty. Here, as everywhere in Poland, all are ready to sacrifice

their lives; but the hour is not yet arrived. Let us pray, and, as we

pray, not one of us will be found wanting when the summons comes. Let

us not wish any evil to our enemies. See them to-day, how silent and

motionless they stand! They look at us, and they now comprehend what

we are, and what we may become. With one gesture they might crush us,

they might knock us over, bleeding on the soil; but they are silent.

They know that behind us there is a whole people, and that a nation

cannot be slain.’ Then, turning to the fluttering standard, the priest

said, as he concluded, ‘Stainless bird, white eagle! that wast wont to

distribute crowns to others, and art so crownless to-day, float above

thy brothers, and cry to the four quarters of the globe that thou art

living still! Call together thy children, thine emigrants, and thy

defenders of old, and point, still point the way! Thou must suffer,

thou must suffer much; but one day thou shalt rise, rise higher than in

the past, and spread thy wings over a people which, at last, is free.’

After planting a wooden cross on the spot where mass had been said, the

crowd dispersed, and they carried away with them the solemn memory of a

scene which was passing strange.

But the real question had not ceased to live in Warsaw, the centre

of Polish agitation; it had existed there before the manifestation

of Horoldo, and from thence it had influenced that episode in the

great movement, of which the spirit seemed to be as contagious as a

passion. And here I must notice the diverse phases of Russian policy,

and the fatality which seemed to attend upon its decisions. Let this

be remarked, that in the last days of March, Russia showed herself

ready for concessions, and promulgated some reforms. Then and there a

reaction occurs which reaches its height on April 8th, and the reforms

of March go for nothing, or, at least, are, like everything else for

the time being, in abeyance. By the month of August, and after a period

of repression and severity, which was also distinguished by a marked

antagonism between Marquis Wiélopolski and General Souchozanett (the

successor of Prince Gortchakof), the sky appears again to clear. To the

kingdom of Poland, a new lieutenant is given, General Count Lambert,

who starts for Warsaw on a conciliatory mission. He is to carry out

new institutions, to call together ‘enlightened and well-intentioned

men,’ and to ‘find out the real wants of the country.’ What was to

be the result of these tactics, adopted again under an aggravated

condition of affairs? Unfortunately in this as in every such attempt

made in Poland by the Russian government, there was something unsound.

Count Lambert, as far as his own qualifications went, doubtless did

unite in himself all the conditions which were most favourable for a

mission of peace. He was a gentleman of courteous and affable manners,

of French origin, and by religion a Roman Catholic; his temper was

candid and moderate, and he enjoyed the peculiar flavour of the Tzar;

but at the same time he had men placed under him, who were understood

to represent the old Russian party; and these men were there to watch

him, and keep him to the point if the occasion should require it.

These were General Gerstenzweig, the Military Governor of Warsaw,

Minister of the Interior, Krijanowski, the head of the staff, and the

senator Platonof, a member of the Council of Administration. In spite

of everything, Count Lambert, on his arrival at Warsaw, was received

with favour, and looked upon as a plenipotentiary of peace; his first

acts being indeed marked by a conciliatory spirit. With the heads of

the national party and with the bishops the Count held conferences,

and even received a confidential memorandum from M. Wyszinski, a Canon

of note in Warsaw, whose paper pointed out the conditions under which

peace might be possible; namely, conditions which meant a constitution

for the kingdom, and an organisation founded upon the national autonomy

of Lithuania and Ruthenia. Finally, Count Lambert bestirred himself

to put into practice the new institutions which had been talked

of, namely, elections in districts and provinces, and a reformed

organisation of the Council of State.

It was important for the country and for the national party to know

what steps it ought to take when these elections were impending; and

when affairs under the new lieutenant had assumed a new aspect, several

meetings took place. To reject everything and to hold their own hands,

was as yet the opinion offered by those who formed the _advanced_

party, and whose votes were for action. The _moderate_ party, however,

had more practical sense, and seeing the necessity of not rejecting

any legal means, they combatted this idea of not participating in any

way in the forthcoming elections. The moderate party carried the day,

but one combination was devised as a rallying point for opinions of

every shade. Two petitions were to be signed at the same time--the

first, addressed to the Council of State, was to demand the complete

emancipation of the Jews; the other, addressed to Count Lambert, was

to claim a national representation, as being the only institution

proper for seeking out and making known the wants of the country, as

it was expressed in the imperial rescript. These two petitions, it was

intended, should be signed by all the electors when they gave their

votes; and thus at the end of September they came to the ballot. In

spite of some attempts made by the most hot-headed partisans, great

unanimity prevailed; the peasants in particular showed a vast amount

of zeal, and the two petitions thus agreed upon were signed by the

electors throughout all the districts of the country. One circumstance

of this transaction is a curious one, and that is the secrecy with

which the signatures were affixed. So well indeed was the secret kept,

that of one of the addresses the text has never transpired. In all the

elections the moderate party had a great advantage, and thus a new

character was given to the movement, for, instead of mere agitation,

it assumed the nature of a legal claim, and it was settled that all

manifestations were to terminate in a religious fête, in honour of

Kosciusko, on October 15th, while the addresses were to be sent up by a

deputation on the 18th.

On the 17th, however, the city was suddenly declared to be in a state

of siege. What had happened?

No fear of possible troubles and tumult on the 15th had driven the

authorities to this step, but they had become aware of that new plan of

action which I have just described as adopted by the national party.

Some of the bishops, taking the initiative, had sent a paper to Count

Lambert, which he had refused to receive, while in another way the

business about petitions signed at the elections had got wind, and had

occasioned the greatest uneasiness, above all, in St. Petersburg.

This was, moreover, the very moment at which the disturbances among the

students had broken out in Russia. Such a complication of symptoms in

the political world terrified the government, and a state of siege was

proclaimed; certainly, less with the view of interrupting the Kosciusko

fête than of stifling the petitions which were to be presented four

days later. Once more the face of affairs was altered; from having

been a matter of politics and of legal claims, it went back to the old

dramatic aspect, and the scenes of October 15th were a new tragedy. The

era of reaction had recommenced, and this reaction swept everything

before it.

Of the many heavy days which had succeeded each other, the morning of

October 15th was perhaps the saddest that ever dawned. From an early

hour the populace had crowded into the churches, to take part in the

funeral services which invoked and hallowed the memory of Kosciusko.

The troops, employed in the military occupation of the town, offered

no hindrance to the faithful at the doors of the sacred edifices; and

it was not till the churches were filled, that the army had orders to

surround them. From some of the buildings escape would have been easy,

and these were the last to be encircled. The cathedral of St. John and

the church of the Bernardines had the honour of being really besieged;

while at the same time hordes of Cossacks, spread all over Warsaw,

committed every sort of excess, and spared neither the women nor the

strangers within the gates. An Englishman (Mr. George Mitchell) was a

sufferer and an eye-witness of this day’s work, and he wrote, ‘troops

of infuriated Cossacks and Circassians swept the streets, and they cut

down men and women without any distinction whatever. They entered into

the dwellings, they maltreated the inhabitants, and they sacked the

houses.’

When the order was given to surround the churches, it had most

certainly not been anticipated that the crowd would embrace the strange

resolution of refusing to quit them as long as the troops were on the

ground, and that it would be necessary to drive them out. Thus, one

rash and ill-considered resolution led, a little later, to the most

disastrous consequences. During the whole day things continued on this

wise; the crowd was in the churches, breathless, excited, hungry, but

unalterable; and still the soldiers camped before the doors. At eight

o’clock in the evening, a General appeared, and he offered pardon to

the crowd, if they would surrender at the mercy of the Lieutenant of

the Kingdom. The reply was, that the people knew what mercy meant, and

that as long as the troops were not withdrawn they should not stir.

Tapers were now lit round the catafalque which had been reared the

night before for the late archbishop, and hymns were chanted from time

to time.

At two o’clock in the morning a new envoy came to parley with the

multitude, who answered as before, that they did not ask for pardon.

Two long mortal hours now passed away, when at seven o’clock, that is

to say, after a siege of seventeen hours, the soldiers were ordered

to force their way into the churches and to drive out the occupants.

More than two thousand persons were seized, and carried to the citadel.

But this was not all; and here again appears that fatality which I

have said attended upon the Russian officials. Count Lambert, it would

appear, had in no way anticipated or intended either this invasion

of the churches or these wholesale arrests. Both had been executed

in obedience to the commands of General Gerstenzweig, the Chief of

the state of siege, and thence arose an altercation between the two

generals, which was tragical enough in its close. Count Lambert

vehemently reproached Gerstenzweig for all the horrors of the day, and

Gerstenzweig retorted with equal violence. What next? It seems a fact

no longer to be doubted, that General Gerstenzweig then took a pistol,

and blew out his brains, while Count Lambert quitted Warsaw without any

warning.

The results of the scene which was played out on the 15th of October

were soon felt. The administrator of the diocese ordered all the

churches in Warsaw to be closed, and the leaders of the other religious

bodies soon followed his example; for the same thing was done by the

grand rabbi, and by the head of the Protestant Church. For the last

year, every school in Poland had been locked, and the theatres were in

a like case; and it was now the turn of the churches to be shut.

Thus and then did Russia inaugurate a new period of reaction, which has

not yet come to an end (April 1862).

Of a drama which has lasted for a whole year, we behold the sad

and eventful epilogue. And yet all that happened on the 15th of

October, bad as it was, was simply a revision of all that had gone

before--of all the punishments which, since February 1861, had been

indiscriminately applied by martial law to all classes, all religions,

and all professions. Let us see, whom do we find, among this crowd of

men, punished, deported, or confined in prisons?

There is M. Szlenker, the Provost of the Merchants of Warsaw, himself

the richest and the most honourable merchant of the kingdom.

There is M. Hiszpanski, the head of the Shoemakers’ Guild (the grandson

of that Kilinski who was so loved and influential in Warsaw), a member

of the delegation formed in 1861, and elected, in September of that

same year, a member of the Municipal Council.

Poles who, by reason of the amnesty, had returned from Siberia have

since been sent back, ‘by way of precaution’--so run the terms of their

sentence; and of this number is M. Ehrenberg, the celebrated poet, and

M. Krajewski, one of our most eminent critics, the most moderate and

sensible of writers, the author of the translation of ‘Faust.’

An immense number of students and artizans have been sent to the

Caucasus and to Orenbourg. The Grand-Rabbi Meiselz, and the Rabbis

Kramstuk and Jastrow have been expelled; and Otho, the Evangelical

pastor, has been sentenced to deportation. The Chapter of Warsaw alone

has lost ten of its members, among whom the most conspicuous were M.

Stecki and the Canon Wyszinski, from whom General Lambert once asked

for memoranda. Last and worst, have we not seen M. Bialobozeski, the

very Administrator of the diocese of Warsaw, an old man of eighty years

of age, condemned to death because, after the 15th of October, he

ordered all the churches to be shut. By way of favour, his sentence was

commuted to imprisonment in a fortress, where he languished, and where

his character was aspersed by the publication of a retractation. If we

can ever suppose it to have been made by the victim himself, it only

renders his sentence of death more inexplicable than it had been before.

On seeing such a multitude of punishments, it is not unnatural for the

reader to inquire, what are the crimes and the offences of which they

are the reward? In the government publications, and in the sentences

of the sufferers, he who runs may read, that they were awarded for

prayers, hymns, processions, for doubtful gestures made when perusing

official handbills, and for wearing national emblems and black clothes.

Only (and this is perfectly true) they were so inflicted because under

songs, prayers, and mournful apparel, there lay the soul of a people,

of a whole nation, which has been saddened by excess of tyranny, which

has been terribly tried, but which, even now, is not disheartened.

At this period of agitation in Europe, when new problems complicate her

political life, the true importance of the events of the last year must

be seen to lie in their suddenness, and in the fact that Poland is not

discouraged. Judge of the last twelve months as we may, we cannot but

allow that they have shown us a people which, though often stricken,

is again on foot (though _how_ this is so we cannot tell); that this

nation has found within itself the secret of an indestructible life;

and that, so far from being dead, she lives with a new and more

abundant vitality.

The drama which has been enacted before us, coloured, though it may

be, by the tender and excited imagination of her sons, and, at times,

seeming more like a legend than a page of history, cannot be mistaken

for the convulsions of a nationality that is dying, and which, in

expiring, utters one last and piercing cry. It is the expression of

a force which, during thirty years, has been purified, tempered,

and trained afresh, and which now appears to prove itself at once

passionate and calm.

What are the signs by which any true nationality is to be recognised?

Must a nationality have genius, intelligence, and true imagination?

Then Poland, during the last hundred years, has had a legion of

poets, all singularly gifted and inspired, and she still possesses

a flourishing and varied literature; for her language has remained,

although she has not had the freedom of her schools. Is the love of

the past and its traditions required? Then that feeling has been both

evident and rampant for the last year. Must there be originality of

life and manners? Polish manners have preserved all the savour of

their nationality, and, most assuredly, have not been influenced by

Russia. Is it by unity among all classes, and by social peace, that

a nationality approves its integrity and its strength? The present

movement has demonstrated precisely that there is a unity, a fusion

of all classes, and that this fusion is sealed by the abolition of

the last traces of serfdom, by the definitive acquisition of property

by the peasants--a measure which the landlords themselves favoured in

a practical and liberal manner; for if, in this agitation, we have

seen only its moving and dramatic externals, we must not forget that

under all this passion lies a spirit of political sagacity, which is

patent, and which has been enlightened by all the faults, and by all

the history of the past. Lastly, is religion one of the signs of a

truly deeply-living nationality? In this Polish awakening, religion

has been prominent, showing itself in the hymns of a people which

assembles and takes refuge in churches. I have no doubt but that, by

some great democrats, Poland is suspected on account of her religious

fidelity. Men of this stamp do not see that there is something in

suffering which opens the sources of religious feeling, till they

rise to passionate mysticism. Moreover, in a country like Poland, the

Church is the only organised power--the only body which has its own

laws and independence. Catholicism is truly one of the shapes of Polish

nationality; only, into her Catholicism a great sense of toleration is

now admitted; and we have seen priests, bishops, rabbis and Protestant

pastors, all joined in the same manifestations, and suffering under

the same measures of repression. Thus, Polish Catholicism realises

the phenomenon, unhappily so rare, of a profound and intimate alliance

between religion and all the instincts of liberty and nationality.

Thus, also, this union renders Polish agitation something very

different from any of those ephemeral fevers of revolution which give

way before sharp measures of suppression.

For the same reason, the Polish problem remains a threatening one to

Russia; for it engages Russia in a conflict as ungrateful as it is

impotent. It compromises her in the eyes of Europe; it occupies her

politicians, and it lies a weight upon her own internal developement. I

do not know what is to happen; no one, indeed, can tell. She may again

be stern, or again she may relent in her rule; but the problem is the

same, and, without any compensation to set it off, it becomes more and

more serious in the empire of Tzars. Doubtless, when, a hundred years

ago, Russia, realising the dream of Peter the Great, marched upon

Poland, rent it, and carried off its spoils, she then violated all the

principles of justice; but she had a reason for it. She wished to draw

towards the West, and, through her western possessions, to enter among

European affairs. But everything has changed since then. Does Russia

now require Poland to give her a place in the world, and among European

powers? Russia now approaches the western world, less by her presence

at Warsaw, than by that multiplicity of communications, that mixture

of interests and ideas, and by those iron lines which, bringing all

countries together, have made distances disappear. And what happens now?

This: that in order to maintain a supremacy, which is always

precarious, and always contested (because lawful wishes have not been

responded to), Russia is obliged to compromise her whole policy. At

every turn, in each combination or alliance, she is tied and bound,

because evermore between her and those who might be her allies, there

rises the phantom of Poland. But not only is her external policy

hampered and entangled, but her internal rule is affected by the

necessity for incessant tyranny. The great Lord Chatham once said, ‘If

the English government subjects America to a despotic rule, so surely

will England herself be obliged to submit to it.’ And herein exactly

lies the bond which connects Polish agitation with those liberal

aspirations which at the present time appear in Russia. It is no longer

a secret that throughout all classes of Russian society sentiments of

sympathy with Poland are being rapidly propagated, and that Russians

begin to foresee, without disturbing themselves, that a separation of

the two countries is really possible. A newspaper, which is published

secretly in St. Petersburg, the _Welicorus_, expressed this very

distinctly not long ago. ‘In order to maintain our rule in Poland, we

are obliged to keep there a supplementary force of 200,000 men, and

annually to disburse 40,000,000 of our money over and above those

revenues which we draw from Poland. Now, our finances will never be

better as long as we squander our resources in this way.... We must let

Poland go, in order to save ourselves from destruction.... We can no

longer conquer Poland, as in the time of Paskievitch, because there are

now no internal discords in Poland; and in spite of the efforts of our

government to sow division between the two classes, her patriots have

consented to deprive themselves of a part of their own estates, and

have settled them on the peasants.... For us Russians, it is a question

whether we are to wait till we are ignominiously expelled from Poland,

which, self-emancipated, will be our enemy, or whether we will be wise

enough voluntarily to renounce a ruinous ascendency, and thus make the

Poles faithful friends of Russia.’ Such is in very truth the question

now in agitation; and Europe looks on attentively.

And as regards Europe herself, we must say, that this question of the

relations of Russia with Poland, after the terrible drama of last

year, is by no means an indifferent matter. The western world is at

present passing through one of those crises, during which everything

is experienced, where everything is renewed, and everything alters

in appearance. That which forty years ago was called the order of

Europe no longer exists; nor have the peoples alone violated it. The

governments themselves have so far lent a hand to the work, that,

piece by piece, the fabric has fallen away.

The public order of 1815 is on the eve of disappearing, and what

may be the new order which shall be brought forth by the labours of

to-day assuredly no one can tell; but simply because we live at a time

in which everything is recast, and re-elaborated, it is our first

and best interest to watch the elements of this vast and universal

movement, and carefully to consider every serious manifestation of

the conscience of the nations. We must notice what dies and what

lives. Russia, it has been said, ‘has a certain fear of the opinions

of Europe.’ This opinion, most surely, has nothing in it hostile to

Russia. On the contrary, Europe cannot but feel an interest in such

labours as the emancipation of the serfs, of which the initiative

was taken by the Emperor Alexander II., as also in that liberal work

which is at present, day by day, evidently pursued in the heart of

the Russian nation; but not the less, at the same time, is the eye

of Europe upon that black spot at Warsaw. She sees and weighs both

faults and misfortunes, and she says to herself, that, if faults have

consequences, which follow them inevitably, there is not the less a

fixed limit to a people’s misfortunes, and to a nation’s pangs.

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE, LONDON.

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious errors in punctuation and some inconsistencies in spellings of

proper nouns have been fixed.

Page 6: “whereas our cotemporary” changed to “whereas our contemporary”

Page 114: “the Basilian convent” changed to “the Basilican convent”