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[Illustration: DR. MIDDLETON.]
THADDEUS OF WARSAW
BY
JANE PORTER
AUTHOR OF "THE SCOTTISH CHIEFS," ETC.
"Loin d'aimer la guerre, il l'abhorre;
En triomphant même il déplore
Les désastres qu'elle produit
Et, couronné par la victoire,
II gémit de sa propre gloire.
Si la paix n'en est pas le fruit."
A NEW AND REVISED EDITION
WITH NEW NOTES, ETC., BY THE AUTHOR
THE AUTHOR,
TO
HER FRIENDLY READERS.
Written for the new edition of "Thaddeus of Warsaw," forming one of
the series called "The Standard Novels."
To such readers alone who, by the sympathy of a social taste, fall in
with any blameless fashion of the day, and, from an amiable interest,
also, in whatever may chance to afford them innocent pleasure, would
fain know something more about an author whose works have brought
them that gratification than the cold letter of a mere literary
preface usually tells: to such readers this--something of an
egotistical--epistle is addressed.
For, in beginning the republication of a regular series of the
novels, or, as they have been more properly called, biographical
romances, of which I have been the author, it has been considered
desirable to make certain additions to each work, in the form of a
few introductory pages and scattered notes, illustrative of the
origin of the tale, of the historical events referred to in it, and
of the actually living characters who constitute its personages, with
some account, also, of the really local scenery described; thus
giving, it is thought, a double zest to the entertainment of the
reader, by bringing him into a previous acquaintance with the persons
he is to meet in the book, and making him agreeably familiar with the
country through which he is to travel in their company. Indeed, the
social taste of the times has lately fully shown how advantageous the
like conversational disclosures have proved to the recent
republications of the celebrated "Waverley Novels," by the chief of
novel-writers; and in the new series of the admirable naval tales by
the distinguished American novelist, both of whom paid to the mother-
country the gratifying tribute of making it their birthplace.
Such evidences in favor of an argument could not fail to persuade me
to undertake the desired elucidating task; feeling, indeed,
particularly pleased to adopt, in my turn, a successful example from
the once Great Unknown--now the not less great avowed author of the
Waverley Novels, in the person of Sir Walter Scott, who did me the
honor to adopt the style or class of novel of which "Thaddeus of
Warsaw" was the first,--a class which, uniting the personages and
facts of real history or biography with a combining and illustrative
machinery of the imagination, formed a new species of writing in that
day, and to which Madame de Staël and others have given the
appellation of "an epic in prose." The day of its appearance is now
pretty far back: for "Thaddeus of Warsaw" (a tale founded on Polish
heroism) and the "Scottish Chiefs" (a romance grounded on Scottish
heroism) were both published in England, and translated into various
languages abroad, many years before the literary wonder of Scotland
gave to the world his transcendent story of Waverley, forming a most
impressive historical picture of the last struggle of the papist, but
gallant, branch of the Stuarts for the British throne. [Footnote: It
was on the publication of these, her first two works, in the German
language that the authoress was honored with being made a lady of the
Chapter of St. Joachim, and received the gold cross of the order from
Wirtemburg.]
"Thaddeus of Warsaw" being the first essay, in the form of such an
association between fact and fancy, was published by its author with
a natural apprehension of its reception by the critical part of the
public. She had not, indeed, written it with any view to publication,
but from an almost resistless impulse to embody the ideas and
impressions with which her heart and mind were then full. It was
written in her earliest youth; dictated by a fervent sympathy with
calamities which had scarcely ceased to exist, and which her eager
pen sought to portray; and it was given to the world, or rather to
those who might feel with her, with all the simple-hearted enthusiasm
which saw no impediment when a tale of virtue or of pity was to be
told.
In looking back through the avenue of life to that time, what events
have occurred, public and private, to the countries and to the
individuals named in that tale! to persons of even as lofty names and
excellences, of our own and other lands, who were mutually affected
with me in admiration and regret for the virtues and the sorrows
described! In sitting down now to my retrospective task, I find
myself writing this, my second preface to the story of "Thaddeus of
Warsaw," just thirty years from the date of its first publication.
Then, I wrote when the struggle for the birthright independence of
Poland was no more; when she lay in her ashes, and her heroes in
their wounds; when the pall of death spread over the whole country,
and her widows and orphans travelled afar.
In the days of my almost childhood,--that is, eight years before I
dipped my pen in their tears,--I remember seeing many of those
hapless refugees wandering about St. James's Park. They had sad
companions in the like miseries, though from different enemies, in
the emigrants from France; and memory can never forget the variety of
wretched yet noble-looking visages I then contemplated in the daily
walks which my mother's own little family group were accustomed to
take there. One person, a gaunt figure, with melancholy and bravery
stamped on his emaciated features, is often present to the
recollection of us all. He was clad in a threadbare blue uniform
great coat, with a black stock, a rusty old hat, pulled rather over
his eyes; his hands without gloves; but his aspect was that of a
perfect gentleman, and his step that of a military man. We saw him
constantly at one hour, in the middle walk of the Mall, and always
alone; never looking to the right nor to the left, but straight on;
with an unmoving countenance, and a pace which told that his thoughts
were those of a homeless and hopeless man--hopeless, at least, of all
that life might bring him. On, on he went to the end of the Mall;
turned again, and on again; and so he continued to do always, as long
as we remained spectators of his solitary walk: once, indeed, we saw
him crossing into St. Martin's Lane. Nobody seemed to know him, for
he spoke to none; and no person ever addressed him, though many, like
ourselves, looked at him, and stopped in the path to gaze after him.
We often longed to be rich, to follow him wherever his wretched abode
might have been, and then silently to send comforts to him from hands
he knew not of. We used to call him, when speaking of him to
ourselves, _Il Penseroso;_ and by that name we yet not unfrequently
talk of him to each other, and never without recurrence to the very
painful, because unavailing, sympathy we then felt for that apparently
friendless man. Such sympathy is, indeed, right; for it is one of the
secondary means by which Providence conducts the stream of his mercies
to those who need the succor of their fellow-creatures; and we cannot
doubt that, though the agency of such Providence was not to be in
our hands, there were those who had both the will and the power
given, and did not, like ourselves, turn and pity that interesting
emigrant in vain.
Some time after this, General Kosciusko, the justly celebrated hero
of Poland, came to England, on his way to the United States; having
been released from his close imprisonment in Russia, and in the
noblest manner, too, by the Emperor Paul, immediately on his
accession to the throne. His arrival caused a great sensation in
London, and many of the first characters of the times pressed forward
to pay their respects to such real patriotic virtue in its adversity.
An old friend of my family was amongst them; his own warm heart
encouraging the enthusiasm of ours, he took my brother Robert to
visit the Polish veteran, then lodging at Sablonière's Hotel, in
Leicester Square. My brother, on his return to us, described him as a
noble looking man, though not at all handsome, lying upon a couch in
a very enfeebled state, from the effects of numerous wounds he had
received in his breast by the Cossacks' lances after his fall, having
been previously overthrown by a sabre stroke on his head. His voice,
in consequence of the induced internal weakness, was very low, and
his speaking always with resting intervals. He wore a black bandage
across his forehead, which covered a deep wound there; and, indeed,
his whole figure bore marks of long suffering.
Our friend introduced my brother to him by name, and as "a boy
emulous of seeing and following noble examples." Kosciusko took him
kindly by the hand, and spoke to him words of generous encouragement,
in whatever path of virtuous ambition he might take. They never have
been forgotten. Is it, then, to be wondered at, combining the mute
distress I had so often contemplated in other victims of similar
misfortunes with the magnanimous object then described to me by my
brother, that the story of heroism my young imagination should think
of embodying into shape should be founded on the actual scenes of
Kosciusko's sufferings, and moulded out of his virtues!
To have made him the ostensible hero of the tale, would have suited
neither the modesty of his feelings nor the humbleness of my own
expectation of telling it as I wished. I therefore took a younger and
less pretending agent, in the personification of a descendant of the
great John Sobieski.
But it was, as I have already said, some years after the partition of
Poland that I wrote, and gave for publication, my historical romance
on that catastrophe. It was finished amid a circle of friends well
calculated to fan the flame which had inspired its commencement some
of the leading heroes of the British army just returned from the
victorious fields of Alexandria and St. Jean d'Acre; and, seated in
my brother's little study, with the war-dyed coat in which the
veteran Abercrombie breathed his last grateful sigh, while, like
Wolfe, he gazed on the boasted invincible standard of the enemy,
brought to him by a British soldier,--with this trophy of our own
native valor on one side of me, and on the other the bullet-torn vest
of another English commander of as many battles,--but who, having
survived to enjoy his fame, I do not name here,--I put my last stroke
to the first campaigns of Thaddeus Sobieski.
When the work was finished, some of the persons near me urged its
being published. But I argued, in opposition to the wish, its
different construction to all other novels or romances which had gone
before it, from Richardson's time-honored domestic novels to the
penetrating feeling in similar scenes by the pen of Henry Mackenzie;
and again, Charlotte Smith's more recent, elegant, but very
sentimental love stories. But the most formidable of all were the
wildly interesting romances of Anne Radcliffe, whose magical wonders
and mysteries were then the ruling style of the day. I urged, how
could any one expect that the admiring readers of such works could
consider my simply-told biographical legend of Poland anything better
than a dull union between real history and a matter-of-fact
imagination?
Arguments were found to answer all this; and being excited by the
feelings which had dictated my little work, and encouraged by the
corresponding characters with whom I daily associated, I ventured the
essay. However, I had not read the sage romances of our older times
without turning to some account the lessons they taught to
adventurous personages of either sex; showing that even the boldest
knight never made a new sally without consecrating his shield with
some impress of acknowledged reverence. In like manner, when I
entered the field with my modern romance of Thaddeus of Warsaw, I
inscribed the first page with the name of the hero of Acre. That
dedication will be found through all its successive editions, still
in front of the title-page; and immediately following it is a second
inscription, added, in after years, to the memory of the magnanimous
patriot and exemplary man, Thaddeus Kosciusko, who had first filled
me with ambition to write the tale, and who died in Switzerland, A.
D. 1817, fuller of glory than of years. Yet, if life be measured by
its vicissitudes and its virtues, we may justly say, "he was gathered
in his ripeness."
After his visit to old friends in the United States,--where, in his
youth, he had learned the art of war, and the science of a noble,
unselfish independence, from the marvel of modern times, General
Washington,--Kosciusko returned to Europe, and abode a while in
France, but not in its capital. He lived deeply retired, gradually
restoring his shattered frame to some degree of health by the peace
of a resigned mind and the occupation of rural employments.
Circumstances led him to Switzerland; and the country of William
Tell, and of simple Christian fellowship, could not but soon be found
peculiarly congenial to his spirit, long turned away from the
pageants and the pomp of this world. In his span he had had all,
either in his grasp or proffered to him. For when nothing remained of
all his military glory and his patriotic sacrifices but a yet
existing fame, and a conscious sense within him of duty performed, he
was content to "eat his crust," with that inheritance alone; and he
refused, though with an answering magnanimity of acknowledgment, a
valuable property offered to him by the Emperor of Russia, as a free
gift from a generous enemy, esteeming his proved, disinterested
virtues. He also declined the yet more dazzling present of a crown
from the then master of the continent, who would have set him on the
throne of Poland--but, of a truth, under the vassalage of the Emperor
of the French! Kosciusko was not to be consoled for Poland by riches
bestowed on himself, nor betrayed into compromising her birthright of
national independence by the casuistry that would have made his
parental sceptre the instrument of a foreign domination.
Having such a theme as his name, and the heroes his co-patriots, the
romance of "Thaddeus of Warsaw" was no sooner published than it
overcame the novelty of its construction, and became universally
popular. Nor was it very long before it fell into General Kosciusko's
hands, though then in a distant land; and he kindly and promptly lost
no time in letting the author know his approbation of the narrative,
though qualified with several modest expressions respecting himself.
From that period she enjoyed many treasured marks of his esteem; and
she will add, though with a sad satisfaction, that amongst her
several relics of the Great Departed who have honored her with
regard, she possesses, most dearly prized, a medal of Kosciusko and a
lock of his hair. About the same time she received a most
incontestable proof of the accuracy of her story from the lips of
General Gardiner, the last British minister to the court of
Stanislaus Augustus. On his reading the book, he was so sure that the
facts it represented could only have been learned on the spot, that
he expressed his surprise to several persons that the author of the
work, an English lady, could have been at Warsaw during all the
troubles there and he not know it. On his repeating this observation
to the late Duke of Roxburgh, his grace's sister-in-law, who happened
to overhear what was said, and knew the writer, answered him by
saying, "The author has never been in Poland." "Impossible!" replied
the general; "no one could describe the scenes and occurrences there,
in the manner it is done in that book, without having been an
eyewitness." The lady, however, convinced the general of the fact
being otherwise, by assuring him, from her own personal knowledge,
that the author of "Thaddeus of Warsaw" was a mere school-girl in
England at the time of the events of the story.
How, then, it has often been asked, did she obtain such accurate
information with regard to those events? and how acquire her familiar
acquaintance with the palaces and persons she represents in the work?
The answer is short. By close questioning every person that came in
her way that knew anything about the object of her interest; and
there were many brave hearts and indignant lips ready to open with
the sad yet noble tale. Thus every illustrious individual she wished
to bring into her narrative gradually grew upon her knowledge, till
she became as well acquainted with all her desired personages as if
they were actually present with her; for she knew their minds and
their actions; and these compose the man. The features of the
country, also, were learned from persons who had trodden the spots
she describes: and that they were indeed correct pictures of their
homes and war-fields, the tears and bursting enthusiasm of many of
Poland's long expatriated sons have more than once borne testimony to
her.
As one instance, out of the number I might repeat, of the
inextinguishable love of those noble wanderers from their native
country, I shall subjoin the copy of a letter addressed to me by one
of those gallant men, then holding a high military post in a foreign
service, and who, I afterwards learned, was of the family of
Kosciusko, whose portrait he sent to me: for the letter was
accompanied with a curiously-wrought ring of pure gold, containing a
likeness of that hero. The letter was in French, and I transcribe it
literally in the words of the writer:--
"Madame!
"Un inconnu ose addresser la parole à l'auteur immortel de Thaddeus
de Warsaw; attaché par tent de liens à l'héros que vous avez chanté,
je m'enhardis à distraire pour un moment vos nobles veilles.
"Qu'il me soit permis de vous offrir, madame, l'hommage de mon
admiration la plus exaltée, en vous présentant la bague qui contient
le buste du Général Kosciusko:--elle a servi de signe de ralliment
aux patriots Polonois, lorsque, en 1794, ils entreprirent de sécouer
leur joug.
"Les anciens déposoient leurs offrandes sur l'autel de leurs
divinités tutélaires;--je ne fais qu'imiter leur exemple. Vous êtes
pour tous les Polonois cette divinité, qui la première ait élevée sa
voix, du fond de l'impériale, Albion, en leur faveur.
"Un jour viendra, et j'ose conserver dans mon coeur cet espoir, que
vos accens, qui ont retenti dans le coeur de l'Europe sensible,
produiront leur effêt célestial, en ressuscitant l'ombre sanglante de
ma chère patrie.
"Daignez agréer, madame, l'hommage respectueuse d'un de vos
serviteurs le plus dévoué, &c. &c."
Probably the writer of the above is now returned to his country, his
vows having been most awfully answered by one of the most momentous
struggles she has ever had, or to which the nations around have ever
yet stood as spectators; for the balance of Europe trembles at the
turning of her scale.
Thus, then, it cannot but be that in the conclusion of this my,
perhaps, last introductory preface to any new edition of "Thaddeus of
Warsaw," its author should offer up a sincerely heartfelt prayer to
the King of kings, the Almighty Father of all mankind, that His all-
gracious Spirit may watch over the issue of this contest, and dictate
the peace of Poland!
ESHER, _May_, 1831.
DEDICATION TO THE FIRST EDITION.
THADDEUS OF WARSAW
is inscribed to
SIR SIDNEY SMITH;
in the hope that, as
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
did not disdain to write a romance,
SIR SIDNEY SMITH
will not refuse to read one.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY CONSIGNED HIS EXCELLENT WORK TO THE
AFFECTION OF A SISTER.
I CONFIDE MY ASPIRING ATTEMPT TO THE
URBANITY OF THE BRAVE; TO THE MAN OF TASTE,
OF FEELING, AND OF CANDOR;
TO HIM WHOSE FRIENDSHIP WILL BESTOW
THAT INDULBENCE ON THE AUTHOR WHICH HIS JUDGMENT
MIGHT HAVE DENIED TO THE BOOK;
TO HIM OF WHOM FUTURE AGES WILL SPEAK WITH HONOR
AND THE PRESENT TIMES BOAST AS THEIR GLORY!
TO
SIR SIDNEY SMITH,
I SUBMIT THIS HUMBLE TRIBUTE OF THE HIGHEST RESPECT
WHICH CAN BE OFFERED BY A BRITON,
OR ANIMATE THE HEART OF
HIS SINCERE FRIEND,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Having attempted a narrative of the intended description, but
written, in fact, from the mere impulse of sympathy with its subject
still fresh in my own and every pitying memory, it is natural that,
after having made up my mind to assent to its publication, in which
much time and thought has been expended in considering the
responsibility of so doing, from so unpractised a pen, I should feel
an increase of anxiety respecting its ultimate fate.
Therefore, before the reader favors the tale itself with his
attention, I beg leave to offer him a little account of the
principles that actuated its composition, and in regard to which one
of the most honored heads in the author's family urged her "not to
withhold it from the press;" observing, in his persuasions, that the
mistakes which many of my young contemporaries of both sexes
continually make in their estimates of human character, and of the
purposes of human life, require to have a line of difference between
certain splendid vices and some of the brilliant order of virtues to
be distinctly drawn before them. "And," he remarked, "it appeared to
be so done in the pages of my Polish manuscript. Therefore," added
he, "let Thaddeus of Warsaw speak openly for himself!"
This opinion decided me. Though with fear and trembling, yet I felt
an encouraging consciousness that in writing the manuscript narrative
for my own private enjoyment only, and the occasional amusement of
those friends dearest around me, I had wished to portray characters
whose high endowments could not be misled into proud ambitions, nor
the gift of dazzling social graces betray into the selfish triumphs
of worldly vanity,--characters that prosperity could not inflate, nor
disappointments depress, from pious trust and honorable action. The
pure fires of such a spirit declare their sacred origin; and such is
the talisman of those achievements which amaze everybody but their
accomplisher. The eye fixed on it is what divine truth declares it to
be "single!" There is no double purpose in it; no glancing to a man's
own personal aggrandizement on one side and on professing services to
his fellow-creatures on the other; such a spirit has only one aim--
Heaven! and the eternal records of that wide firmament include within
it "all good to man."
What flattered Alexander of Macedon into a madman, and perverted the
gracious-minded Julius Caesar into usurpation and tyranny, has also
been found by Christian heroes the most perilous ordeal of their
virtue; but, inasmuch as they are Christian heroes, and not pagan
men, worshippers of false gods, whose fabled examples inculcated all
these deeds of self-absorbing vain-glory, our heroes of a "better
revelation" have no excuse for failing under their trial, and many
there be who pass through it "pure and undefiled." Such were the
great Alfred of England, Gustavus Vasa of Sweden, and his greater
successor in true glory, Gustavus Adolphus,--all champions of
immutable justice and ministers of peace. And though these may be
regarded as personages beyond the sphere of ordinary emulations, yet
the same principles, or their opposites, prevail in every order of
men from the prince to the peasant; and, perhaps, at no period of the
world more than the present were these divers principles in greater
necessity to be considered, and, according to the just conclusion, be
obeyed. On all sides of us we see public and private society broken
up, as it were by an earthquake: the noblest and the meanest passions
of the human bosom at contention, and the latter often so disguised,
that the vile ambuscade is not even suspected till found within the
heart of the fortress itself. We have, however, one veritable
touchstone, that of the truest observation, "ye shall know a tree by
its fruits." Let us look round, then, for those which bear "good
fruits," wholesome to the taste as well as pleasant to the sight,
whether they grow on high altitudes or in the humbler valleys of the
earth; let us view men of all degrees in life in their actions, and
not in their pretensions,--such men as were some of the Sobieski race
in Poland, in every change of their remarkable lives. When placed at
the summit of mortal fame, surrounded by greatness and glory, and
consequent power, they evinced neither pride to others nor a sense of
self-aggrandizement in themselves; and, when under a reverse
dispensation, national misfortunes pursued them, and family sorrows
pierced their souls, the weakness of a murmur never sunk the dignity
of their sustaining fortitude, nor did the firmness of that virtue
harden the amiable sensibilities of their hearts.
To exhibit so truly heroic and endearing a portrait of what every
Christian man ought to be,--for the law of God is the same to the
poor as to the rich,--I have chosen one of that illustrious and, I
believe, now extinct race for the subject of my sketch; and the more
aptly did it present itself, it being necessary to show my hero
amidst scenes and circumstances ready to exercise his brave and
generous propensities, and to put their personal issues to the test
on his mind. Hence Poland's sadly-varying destinies seemed to me the
stage best calculated for the development of any self-imposed task.
There certainly were matters enough for the exhibition of all that
human nature could suffer and endure, and, alas! perish under, in the
nearly simultaneous but terrible regicidal revolution of France; but
I shrunk from that as a tale of horror, the work of demons in the
shapes of men. It was a conflict in which no comparisons, as between
man and man, could exist; and may God grant that so fearful a
visitation may never be inflicted on this world again. May the
nations of this world lay its warnings to their hearts!
It sprung from a tree self-corrupted, which only could produce such
fruits: the demon hierarchy of the French philosophers, who had long
denied the being of that pure and Almighty God, and who, in the
arrogance of their own deified reason, and while in utter subjection
to the wildest desires of their passions, published their profane and
polluted creed amongst all orders of the people, and the natural and
terrible consequences ensued. Ignorant before, they became like unto
their teachers, demons in their unbelief,--demons in one common envy
and hatred of all degrees above them, or around them, whose existence
seemed at all in the way of even their slightest gratification:
mutual spoliation and destruction covered the country. How often has
the tale been told me by noble refugees, sheltered on our shores from
those scenes of blood, where infamy triumphed and truth and honor
were massacred; but such narratives, though they never can be
forgotten, are too direful for the hearer to contemplate in memory.
Therefore, when I sought to represent the mental and moral contest of
man with himself, or with his fellow-men, I did not look for their
field amongst human monsters, but with natural and civilized man;
inasmuch as he is seen to be influenced by the impulses of his
selfish passions--ambition, covetousness, and the vanities of life,
or, on the opposite side, by the generous amenities of true
disinterestedness, in all its trying situations; and, as I have said,
the recent struggle in Poland, to maintain her laws and loyal
independence, against the combined aggressions of the three most
powerful states in Europe, seemed to afford me the most suitable
objects for my moral aim, to interest by sympathy, while it taught
the responsible commission of human life.
I have now described the plan of my story, its aim and origin.
If it be disapproved, let it be at once laid aside; but should it
excite any interest, I pray its perusal may be accompanied with an
indulgent candor, its subjects being of so new, and therefore
uncustomary, a character in a work of the kind. But if the reader be
one of my own sex, I would especially solicit her patience while
going through the first portion of the tale, its author being aware
that war and politics are not the most promising themes for an
agreeable amusement; but the battles are not frequent, nor do the
cabinet councils last long. I beg the favor, if the story is to be
read at all, that no scene may be passed over as extraneous, for
though it begin like a state-paper, or a sermon, it always terminates
by casting some new light on the portrait of the hero. Beyond those
events of peril and of patriotic devotedness, the remainder of the
pages dwell generally with domestic interests; but if the reader do
not approach them regularly through the development of character
opened in the preceding troubled field, what they exhibit will seem a
mere wilderness of incidents, without interest or end; indeed I have
designed nothing in the personages of this narrative out of the way
of living experience. I have sketched no virtue that I have not seen,
nor painted any folly from imagination. I have endeavored to be as
faithful to reality in my pictures of domestic morals, and of heroic
duties, as a just painter would seek to be to the existing objects of
nature, "wonderful and wild, or of gentlest beauty!" and on these
grounds I have steadily attempted to inculcate "that virtue is the
highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of
greatness; that vice is the natural consequence of grovelling
thoughts, which begin in mistake and end in ignominy."
* * * * * * *
POSTCRIPT TO A SUBSEQUENT EDITION.
After so many intervening years have passed since the author of
Thaddeus of Warsaw wrote the foregoing preface, to introduce a work
so novel in its character to the notice and candid judgment of the
British public, it was her intention to take the present occasion of
its now perfectly new republication, at the distance of above forty
years from its earliest appearance and so continued editions, to
express her grateful sense of that public's gratifying sympathies and
honoring testimonies of approbation, from its author's youth to age;
but even in the hour she sits down to perform the gracious task, she
feels a present incapability to undertake it. The very attempt has
too sensibly recalled to her heart events that have befallen her
since she lived amongst the models of her tale; and she has also more
recently been in many of the places it describes; and circumstances,
both of joys and sorrows, having occurred to her there to influence
the whole future current of her mortal life, she finds it impossible
to yet touch on those times and scenes connected with the subjects of
her happy youth, which would now only reverberate notes of sadness it
is her duty to repress. Hence, though while revising the work itself
she experiences a calm delight in the occupation, being a kind of
parting duty, also, to the descendants of her earliest, readers, she
would rather defer any little elucidations she may have met with
regarding the objects of her pen to a few pages in the form of an
Appendix at the end of the work; all, indeed, bringing her
observations, whether by weal or woe, to the one great and guiding
conclusion. "Man is formed for two states of existence--a mortal and
an immortal being;" in the Holy Scriptures authoritatively declared,
"For the life that now is, and for that which is to come."
JANE PORTER.
BRISTOL, _November_, 1844.
CONTENTS.
I.
II. The Mill of Mariemont.
III. The Opening of the Campaign.
IV. The Pass of Volunna.
V. The Banks of the Vistula.
VI. Society in Poland.
VII. The Diet of Poland.
VIII. Battle of Brzesc--The Tenth of October.
IX. The Last Days of Villanow.
X. Sobieski's Departure from Warsaw.
XI. The Baltic.
XII. Thaddeus's First Day in England.
XIII. The Exile's Lodgings.
XIV. A Robbery and its Consequences.
XV. The Widow's Family.
XVI. The Money-Lender.
XVII. The Meeting of Exiles.
XVIII. The Veteran's Narrative.
XIX. Friendship a Staff in Human Life.
XX. Woman's Kindness.
XXI. Fashionable Sketches from the Life.
XXII. Honorable Resources of an Exile.
XXIII.
XXIV. Lady Tinemouth's Boudoir.
XXV. The Countess of Tinemouth's Story.
XXVI. The Kindredship of Minds.
XXVII. Such Things Were.
XXVIII. Mary Beaufort and her Venerable Aunt.
XXIX. Hyde Park.
XXX. Influences of Character.
XXXI. The Great and the Small of Society.
XXXII. The Obduracy of Vice--The Inhumanity of Folly.
XXXIII. Passion and Principle.
XXXIV. Requiescat in Pace.
XXXV. Deep are the Purposes of Adversity.
XXXVI. An English Prison.
XXXVII.
XXXVIII. Zeal is Power.
XXXIX. The Vale of Grantham--Belvoir.
XL. Somerset Castle.
XLI. The Maternal Heart.
XLII. Harrowby Abbey.
XLIII. The Old Village Hotel.
XLIV. Letters of Farewell.
XLV. Deerhurst.
XLVI. The Spirit of Peace.
XLVII. An Avowal.
XLVIII. A Family Party.
XLIX.
L.
APPENDIX.
CHAPTER I.
The large and magnificent palace of Villanow, whose vast domains
stretch along the northern bank of the Vistula, was the favorite
residence of John Sobieski, King of Poland. That monarch, after
having delivered his country from innumerable enemies, rescued Vienna
and subdued the Turks, retired to this place at certain seasons, and
thence dispensed those acts of his luminous and benevolent mind which
rendered his name great and his people happy.
When Charles the Twelfth of Sweden visited the tomb of Sobieski, at
Cracow, he exclaimed, "What a pity that so great a man should ever
die!" [Footnote: In the year 1683, this hero raised the siege of
Vienna, then beleagured by the Turks; and driving them out of Europe,
saved Christendom from a Mohammedan usurpation.] Another generation
saw the spirit of this lamented hero revive in the person of his
descendant, Constantine, Count Sobieski, who, in a comparatively
private station, as Palatine of Masovia, and the friend rather than
the lord of his vassals, evinced by his actions that he was the
inheritor of his forefather's virtue as well as of his blood.
He was the first Polish nobleman who granted freedom to his peasants.
He threw down their mud hovels and built comfortable villages; he
furnished them with seed, cattle, and implements of husbandry, and
calling their families together, laid before them the deed of their
enfranchisement; but before he signed it, he expressed a fear that
they would abuse this liberty of which they had not had experience,
and become licentious.
"No," returned a venerable peasant; "when we were ignorant men, and
possessed no property of our own except these staffs in our hands, we
were destitute of all manly motives for propriety of conduct; but you
have taught us to read out of the Holy Book, how to serve God and
honor the king. And shall we not respect laws which thus bestow on
us, and ensure to us, the fruits of our labors and the favor of
Heaven!"
The good sense and truth of this answer were manifested in the event.
On the emancipation of these people, they became so prosperous in
business and correct in behavior, that the example of the palatine
was speedily followed by the Chancellor Zamoiski [Footnote: This
family had ever been one of the noblest and most virtuous in Poland.
And had its wisdom been listened to in former years by certain
powerful and wildly ambitious lords that once great kingdom would
never have exchanged its long line of hereditary native-princes for
an elective monarchy--that arena of all political mischiefs.] and
several of the principal nobility. The royal Stanislaus's beneficent
spirit moved in unison with that of Sobieski, and a constitution was
given to Poland to place her in the first rank of free nations.
Encircled by his happy tenantry, and within the bosom of his family,
this illustrious man educated Thaddeus, the only male heir of his
name, to the exercise of all the virtues which ennoble and endear the
possessor.
But this reign of public and domestic peace was not to continue.
Three formidable and apparently friendly states envied the effects of
a patriotism they would not imitate; and in the beginning of the year
1792, regardless of existing treaties, broke in upon the unguarded
frontiers of Poland, threatening with all the horrors of a merciless
war the properties, lives, and liberties of the people.
The family of Sobieski had ever been foremost in the ranks of their
country; and at the present crisis its venerable head did not hang
behind the youngest warrior in preparations for the field.
On the evening of an anniversary of the birthday of his grandson, the
palatine rode abroad with a party of friends, who had been
celebrating the festival with their presence. The countess (his
daughter) and Thaddeus were left alone in the saloon. She sighed as
she gazed on her son, who stood at some distance, fitting to his
youthful thigh a variety of sabres, which his servant a little time
before had laid upon the table. She observed with anxiety the
eagerness of his motion, and the ardor that was flashing from his
eyes.
"Thaddeus," said she, "lay down that sword; I wish to speak with
you." Thaddeus looked gayly up. "My dear Thaddeus!" cried his mother,
and tears started to her eyes. The blush of enthusiasm faded from his
face; he threw the sabre from him, and drew near the countess.
"Why, my dear mother, do you distress yourself? When I am in battle,
shall I not have my grandfather near me, and be as much under the
protection of God as at this moment?"
"Yes, my child," answered she, "God will protect you. He is the
protector of the orphan, and you are fatherless." The countess
paused--"Here, my son," said she, giving him a sealed packet, "take
this; it will reveal to you the history of your birth and the name of
your father. It is necessary that you should know a painful fact,
which has hitherto been concealed from you by the wish and noble
judgment of your grandfather." Thaddeus received it, and stood silent
with surprise. "Read it, my love," continued she, "but go to your own
apartments; here you may be interrupted."
Bewildered by the manner of the countess, Thaddeus, without
answering, instantly obeyed. Shutting himself within his study, he
impatiently opened the papers, and soon found his whole attention
absorbed in the following recital.
"TO MY DEAR SON, THADDEUS CONSTANTINE SOBIESKI.
"You are now, my Thaddeus, at the early age of nineteen, going to
engage the enemies of your country. Ere I resign my greatest comfort
to the casualties of war; ere I part with you, perhaps forever, I
would inform you who your father really was--that father whose
existence you have hardly known and whose name you have never heard.
You believe yourself an orphan, your mother a widow; but, alas! I
have now to tell you that you were made fatherless by the perfidy of
man, not by the dispensation of Heaven.
"Twenty-three years ago, I accompanied my father in a tour through
Germany and Italy. Grief for the death of my mother had impaired his
health, and the physicians ordered him to reside in a warmer climate;
accordingly we fixed ourselves near the Arno. During several visits
to Florence, my father met in that city with a young Englishman of
the name of Sackville. These frequent meetings opened into intimacy,
and he was invited to our villa.
"Mr. Sackville was not only the most interesting man I had ever seen,
but the most accomplished, and his heart seemed the seat of every
graceful feeling. He was the first man for whose society I felt a
lively preference. I used to smile at this strange delight, or
sometimes weep; for the emotions which agitated me were undefinable,
but they were enchanting, and unheedingly I gave them indulgence. The
hours which we passed together in the interchange of reciprocal
sentiments, the kind beaming of his looks, the thousand sighs that he
breathed, the half-uttered sentences, all conspired to rob me of
myself.
"Nearly twelve months were spent in these delusions. During the last
three, doubts and anguish displaced the blissful reveries of an
infant tenderness. The attentions of Mr. Sackville died away. From
being the object of his constant search, he then sedulously sought to
avoid me. When my father withdrew to his closet, he would take his
leave, and allow me to walk alone. Solitary and wretched were my
rambles. I had full leisure to compare my then disturbed state of
mind with the comparative peace I had enjoyed in my own country.
Immured within the palace of Villanow, watching the declining health
of my mother, I knew nothing of the real world, the little I had
learned of society being drawn from books; and, uncorrected by
experience, I was taught to believe a perfection in man which, to my
affliction, I since found to be but a poet's dream. When my father
took me to Italy, I continued averse to public company. In such
seclusion, the presence of Sackville, being almost my only pleasure,
chased from my mind its usual reserve, and gradually and surely won
upon the awakened affections of my heart. Artless and unwarned, I
knew not the nature of the passion which I cherished until it had
gained an ascendancy that menaced my life.
"On the evening of one of those days in which I had been disappointed
of seeing this too-dearly-prized companion, I strolled out, and,
hardly conscious of my actions, threw myself along the summit of a
flight of steps in our garden that led down to the Arno. My head
rested against the base of a statue which, because of its resemblance
to me, Sackville had presented to my father. Every recollected
kindness of his now gave me additional torment; and clinging to the
pedestal as to the altar of my adoration, in the bitterness of
disappointment I addressed the insensible stone: 'O! were I pale as
thou art, and this breast as cold and still, would Sackville, when he
looked on me, give one sigh to the creature he had destroyed? My sobs
followed this adjuration, and the next moment I felt myself encircled
in his arms. I struggled, and almost fainting with shame at such
utter weakness, implored to be released. He did release me, and, in
an agony of emotion, besought my pardon for the misery I had endured.
'Now, Therese,' cried he, 'all is as it ought to be! you are my only
hope. Consent to be mine, or the world has no hold on me!' His voice
was hurried and incoherent. Raising my eyes to his, I beheld them
wild and bloodshot. Terrified at his look, and overcome by my own
distracted thoughts, my head sunk on the marble. With increased
violence he exclaimed, 'Have I deceived myself here too? Therese, did
you not prefer me? Did you not love me? Speak now, I conjure you, by
your own happiness and mine! Do you reject me?' He clasped my hands
with a force that made me tremble, and I hardly articulated, 'I will
be yours.' At these words he hurried me down a dark vista, which led
out of the gardens to the open country. A carriage stood at the gate.
I fearfully asked what he intended. 'You have given yourself to me,'
cried he; 'and by that vow, written in heaven, no power shall
separate us until you are mine beyond the reach of man!' Unnerved in
body and weak in mind, I yielded to his impetuosity, and suffering
him to lift me into the chariot, was carried to the door of the
nearest monastery, where in a few minutes we were married.
"I am thus particular in the relation of every incident, in the hope
that you, my dear son, will find some excuse for my great
imprudence,--in the circumstances of my youth, and in the influence
which a man who seemed all excellence had gained over my heart.
However, my fault went not long unpunished.
"The ceremony past, my husband conducted me in silence back to the
carriage. My full bosom discharged itself in abundance of tears,
while Sackville sat by me, without any movement, and mute. Two or
three times I raised my eyes, in hopes of discerning in his some
consolation for my hasty compliance. But no; his gaze, vacant and
glaring, was fixed on the window, and his brow became heavily
clouded, as if he had been forced into an alliance with one he hated,
rather than had just made a voluntary engagement with the woman he
loved. My soul shuddered at this commencement of a contract which I
had dared to make unsanctioned by my father's consent. At length my
sighs seemed to startle my husband; and suddenly turning round, he
cried, 'Therese, this marriage must not be told to the palatine. I
have been precipitate. It would ruin me with my family. Refrain, only
for one month, and then I will publicly acknowledge you.' The
agitation of his features and the feverish burning of his hand, which
then held mine, alarmed me. Trembling from head to foot, I answered,
'Sackville! I have already erred enough in consenting to this stolen
marriage. I will not transgress further by concealing it. I will
instantly throw myself at my father's feet, and confess all.' His
countenance darkened again. 'Therese,' said he, 'I am your husband.
You have sworn to obey me, and till I allow you, divulge this
marriage at your peril!' This last stern sentence, and the sterner
look that accompanied it, pierced me to the heart, and I fell
senseless on the seat.
"When I recovered, I found myself at the foot of that statue beneath
which my unfortunate destiny had been fixed. My husband was leaning
over me. He raised me with tenderness from the ground, and conjured
me, in the mildest accents, to be comforted; to pardon the severity
of those words, which had arisen from a fear that, by an imprudent
avowal on my part, I should risk both his happiness and my own. He
informed me that he was heir to one of the first families in England;
and before he set out for the continent, he had pledged his honor to
his father never to enter into any matrimonial engagement without
first acquainting him with the particulars of the lady and her
family. Should he omit this duty, his father declared that, though
she were a princess, he would disinherit him, and never again admit
him to his presence.
"'Consider this, my dear Therese,' continued he; 'could you endure to
behold me an outcast, and stigmatized with a parent's curse, when a
little forbearance on your part would make all right? I know I have
been hasty in acting as I have done, but now I cannot remedy my
error. To-morrow I will write to my father, describe your rank and
merits, and request his consent to our immediate union. The moment
his permission arrives, I will cast myself on the palatine's
friendship, and reveal what has passed.' The tenderness of my husband
blinded my reason, and with many tears, I sealed his forgiveness and
pledged my faith on his word.
"My dear deceived parent little suspected the perfidy of his guest.
He detained him as his visitor, and often rallied himself on the hold
which this distinguished stranger's accomplishments had taken on his
heart. Sackville's manner to me in public was obliging and free; it
was in private only that I found the tender, the capricious, the
unkind husband. Night after night I have washed the memory of my want
of duty to my father with bitter tears; but my husband was dear to
me--he was more precious than my life! One affectionate look from
him, one fond word, would solace every pain, and make me wait the
arrival of his father's letter with all the sanguine anticipations of
youth and love.
"A fortnight passed away. A month--a long and lingering month.
Another month, and a packet of letters was presented to Sackville. He
was conversing with us. At sight of the superscription, he tore open
the paper, ran his eyes over a few lines, and then, flushed and
agitated, started from his seat and left the room. My emotions were
almost uncontrollable. I had already half risen from my chair to
follow him, when the palatine exclaimed, 'What can be in that letter?
Too plainly I see some afflicting tidings.' And without observing me,
or waiting for a reply, he hurried out after him. I hastened to my
chamber, where, throwing myself on my bed, I tried, by all the
delusions of hope, to obtain some alleviation from the pangs of my
suspense.
"The dinner-bell roused me from my reverie. Dreading to excite
suspicion, and anxious to read in the countenance of my husband the
denunciation of our fate, I obeyed the summons and descended to the
dining-room. On entering it, my eyes irresistibly wandered round to
fix themselves on Sackville. He was leaning against a pillar, his
face pale as death. My father looked grave, but immediately took his
seat, and tenderly placed his friend beside him. I sat down in
silence. Little dinner was eaten, and few words spoken. As for
myself, my agitation almost choked me. I felt that the first words I
should attempt to pronounce must give them utterance, and that their
vehemence would betray our fatal secret.
"When the servants had withdrawn, Sackville rose, and said, in a
faltering voice, 'Count, I must leave you.' 'Nay,' replied the
palatine; 'you are unwell--disturbed--stay till to-morrow.' 'I thank
your excellency,' answered he, 'but I must go to Florence to-night.
You shall see me again before to-morrow afternoon; all will then, I
hope, be settled to my wish.' My husband took his hat. Motionless,
and incapable of speaking, I sat fixed to my chair, in the direct way
that he must pass. His eye met mine. He stopped and looked at me,
abruptly snatched my hand; then as abruptly quitting it, darted out
of the room. I never saw him more.
"I had not the power to dissemble another moment. I fell back into
the arms of my father. He did not, even by this imprudence, read what
I almost wished him to guess, but, with all the indulgence of perfect
confidence, lamented the distress of Sackville, and the sensibility
of my nature, which sympathized so painfully with his friend. I durst
not ask what was the distress of his friend. Abashed at my duplicity
to my father, and overwhelmed with a thousand dreads, I obtained his
permission to retire to my chamber.
"The next day I met him with calmness, for I had schooled my heart to
endure the sufferings it had deserved. He did not remark my recovered
tranquillity, so entirely was his generous heart occupied in
conjecturing the cause of Sackville's grief, who had acknowledged
having received a great shock, but would not reveal the occasion.
This double reserve to my father surprised and distressed me, and to
all his suppositions I said little. My soul was too deeply interested
in the subject to trust to the faithfulness of my lips.
"The morning crept slowly on, and the noon appeared to stand still. I
anxiously watched the declining sun, as the signal for my husband's
return. Two hours had elapsed since his promised time, and my father
grew so impatient that he went out to meet him. I eagerly wished that
they might miss each other. I should then see Sackville a few minutes
alone, and by one word be comforted or driven to despair.
"I was listening to every footstep that sounded under the colonnade,
when my servant brought me a letter which had just been left by one
of Mr. Sackville's grooms. I broke open the seal, and fell senseless
on the floor ere I had read half the killing contents."
Thaddeus, with a burning cheek, and a heart all at once robbed of
that elastic spring which till now had ever made him the happiest of
the happy, took up the letter of his father. The paper was worn, and
blistered with his mother's tears. His head seemed to swim as he
contemplated the handwriting, and he said to himself, "Am I to
respect or to abhor him?" He proceeded in the perusal.
"TO THERESE, COUNTESS SOBIESKI.
"How, Therese, am I to address you? But an attempt to palliate my
conduct would be to no purpose; indeed it is impossible. You cannot
conceive a viler opinion of me than I have of myself. I know that I
forfeit all claim to honor, in the most delicate point of your noble
and trusting heart!--that I have sacrificed your tenderness to my
distracted passions; but you shall no more be subject to the caprices
of a man who cannot repay your innocent love with his own. _You_
have no guilt to torture you; and you possess virtues which will
render you tranquil under every calamity. I leave you to your own
purity, and, therefore, peace of mind. Forget the ceremony which has
passed between us; my wretched heart disclaims it forever. Your
father is happily ignorant of it; pray spare him the anguish of
knowing that I was so utterly unworthy of his kindness; I feel that I
am more than ungrateful to you and to him. Therese, your most
inveterate hate cannot more strongly tell me than I can tell myself
that to you I have been a villain. But I cannot retract. I am going
where all search will be vain; and I now bid you an eternal farewell.
May you be happier than ever can be the self-abhorring.
"R. S------."
"FLORENCE."
Thaddeus, after a brief pause, went on with his mother's narrative.
"When my senses returned, I was lying on the floor, holding the half-
perused paper in my hand. Grief and horror had locked up the avenues
of complaint, and I sat as one petrified to stone. My father entered.
At the sight of me, he started as if he had been a spectre. His well-
known features opened at once my agonized heart. With fearful cries I
cast myself at his feet, and putting the letter into his hand, clung,
almost expiring, to his knees.
"When he had read it, he flung it from him, and dropping into a
chair, covered his face with his hands. I looked up imploringly, for
I could not speak. My father stooped forward, and raising me in his
arms, pressed me to his bosom. 'My Therese,' said he, 'it is I who
have done this. Had I not harbored this villain, he never could have
had an opportunity of ruining the peace of my child.' In return for
the unexampled indulgence of this speech, and his repeated assurances
of forgiveness, I promised to forget a man who could have had so
little respect for truth and gratitude, and his own honor. The
palatine replied that he expected such a resolution, in consequence
of the principles my exemplary mother had taught me; and to show me
how far dearer to him was my real tranquillity than any false idea of
impossible restitution, he would not remove even from one
principality to another, were he sure by that means to discover Mr.
Sackville and to avenge my wrongs. My understanding assented to the
justice and dignity of all he said; but long and severe were my
struggles before I could erase from my soul the image of that being
who had been the lord of all my young hopes.
"It was not until you, my dear Thaddeus, were born that I could repay
the goodness of my father with the smiles of cheerfulness. And he
would not permit me to give you any name which could remind him or
myself of the faithless husband who knew not even of your existence;
and by his desire I christened you Thaddeus Constantine, after
himself, and his best beloved friend General Kosciusko. You have not
yet seen that illustrious Polander; his prescient watchfulness for
his country keeps him so constantly employed on the frontiers. He is
now with the army at Winnica, whither you must soon go; and in him
you may study one of the brightest models of patriotic and martial
virtue that ever was presented to mankind. It is well said of him
'that he would have shone with distinguished lustre in the ages of
chivalry.' Gallant, generous, and strictly just, he commands
obedience by the reverence in which he is held, and attaches the
troops to his person by the affability of his manners and the purity
of his life. He teaches them discipline, endurance of fatigue, and
contempt of danger, by his dauntless example, and inspires them with
confidence by his tranquillity in the tumult of action and the
invincible fortitude with which he meets the most adverse stroke of
misfortune. His modesty in victory shows him to be one of the
greatest among men, and his magnanimity under defeat confirms him to
be a Christian hero.
"Such is the man whose name you share. How bitterly do I lament that
the one to which nature gave you a claim was so unworthy to be united
with it, and that of my no less heroic father!
"On our return to Poland, the story which the palatine related, when
questioned about my apparently forlorn state, was simply this:--'My
daughter was married and widowed in the course of two months. Since
then, to root from her memory as much as possible all recollection of
a husband who was only given to be taken away, she still retains my
name; and her son, as my sole heir, shall bear no other.' This reply
satisfied every one; the king, who was my father's only confidant,
gave his sanction to it, and no further inquiries were ever made.
"You are now, my beloved child, entering on the eventful career of
life. God only knows, when the venerable head of your grandfather is
laid in dust, and I, too, have shut my eyes upon you in this world,
where destiny may send you! perhaps to the country of your father.
Should you ever meet him--but that is unlikely; so I will be silent
on a thought which nineteen years of reflection have not yet deprived
of its sting.
"Not to embitter the fresh spring of your youth, my Thaddeus, with
the draught that has poisoned mine: not to implant in your breast
hatred of a parent whom you may never behold, have I written this;
but to inform you in fact from whom you sprung. My history is made
plain to you, that no unexpected events may hereafter perplex your
opinion of your mother, or cause a blush to rise on that cheek for
her, which from your grandfather can derive no stain. For his sake as
well as for mine, whether in peace or in war, may the angels of
heaven guard my boy! This is the unceasing prayer of thy fond mother,
"THERESE, COUNTESS SOBIESKI.
"VILLANOW, _March_, 1792."
When he finished reading, Thaddeus held the papers in his hand; but,
unable to recover from the shock of their contents, he read them a
second time to the end; then laying them on the table, against which
he rested his now aching head, he gave vent to the fulness of his
heart in tears.
The countess, anxious for the effect which her history might have
made on her son, at this instant entered the room. Seeing him in so
dejected an attitude, she approached, and pressing him to her bosom,
silently wept with him. Thaddeus, ashamed of his emotions, yet
incapable of dissembling them, struggled a moment to release himself
from her arms. The countess, mistaking his motive, said in a
melancholy voice, "And do you, my son, despise your mother for the
weakness which she has revealed? Is this the reception that I
expected from a child on whose affection I reposed my confidence and
my comfort?"
"No, my mother" replied Thaddeus; "it is your afflictions which have
distressed me. This is the first unhappy hour I ever knew, and can
you wonder I should be affected? Oh! mother," continued he, laying
his hand on his father's letter, "whatever were his rank, had my
father been but noble in mind, I would have gloried in bearing his
name; but now, I put up my prayers never to hear it more."
"Forget him," cried the countess, hiding her eyes with her
handkerchief.
"I will," answered Thaddeus, "and allow my memory to dwell on the
virtues of my mother only."
It was impossible for the countess or her son to conceal their
agitation from the palatine, who now opened the door. On his
expressing alarm at a sight so unusual, his daughter, finding herself
incapable of speaking, put into his hand the letter which Thaddeus
had just read. Sobieski cast his eye over the first lines; he
comprehended their tendency, and seeing the countess had withdrawn,
he looked towards his grandson. Thaddeus was walking up and down the
room, striving to command himself for the conversation he anticipated
with his grandfather.
"I am sorry, Thaddeus," said Sobieski, "that your mother has so
abruptly imparted to you the real country and character of your
father. I see that his villany has distressed a heart which Heaven
has made alive to even the slightest appearance of dishonor. But be
consoled, my son! I have prevented the publicity of his conduct by an
ambiguous story of your mother's widowhood. Yet notwithstanding this
arrangement, she has judged it proper that you should not enter
general society without being made acquainted with the true events of
your birth. I believe my daughter is right. And cheer yourself, my
child! ever remembering that you are one of the noblest race in
Poland! and suffer not the vices of one parent to dim the virtues of
the other."
"No, my lord," answered his grandson; "you have been more than a
parent to me; and henceforward, for your sake as well as my own, I
shall hold it my duty to forget that I draw my being from any other
source than that of the house of Sobieski."
"You are right," cried the palatine, with an exulting emotion; "you
have the spirit of your ancestors, and I shall live to see you add
glory to the name!" [Footnote: John Sobieski, King of Poland, was the
most renowned sovereign of his time. His victories over the Tartars
and the Turks obtained for him the admiration of Europe. Would it
might be said, "the gratitude also of her posterity!" For his signal
courage and wondrous generalship on the field of Vienna, against the
latter Mohammedan power, rescued Austria, and the chief part of
Christendom at that time, from their ruinous grasp. Where was the
memory of these things, when the Austrian emperor marched his
devastating legions into Poland, in the year 1793?]
The beaming eyes and smiling lips of the young count declared that he
had shaken sorrow from his heart. His grandfather pressed his hand
with delight, and saw in his recovered serenity the sure promise of
his fond prophecy.