THE LAST DAYS OF VILLANOW.
At a time when the effects of these sufferings and fatigues had
brought his bodily strength to its lowest ebb, the young Count
Sobieski was roused by information that the Russians had planted
themselves before Praga, and were preparing to bombard the town. The
intelligence nerved his heart's sinews again, and rallied the
spirits, also, of his depressed soldiers, who energetically obeyed
their commander to put themselves in readiness to march at set of
sun.
Thaddeus saw that the decisive hour was pending. And as the moon
rose, though hardly able to sit his noble charger, he refused the
indulgence of a litter, determining that no illness, while he had any
power to master its disabilities, should make him recede from his
duty. The image of his mother, too, so near the threatened spot,
rushed on his soul. In quick march he led on his troops. Devastation
met them over the face of the country. Scared and houseless villagers
were flying in every direction; old men stood amongst the ashes of
their homes, wailing to the pitying heavens, since man had none.
Children and woman sat by the waysides, weeping over the last
sustenance the wretched infants drew from the breasts of their
perishing mothers.
Thaddeus shut his eyes on the scene.
"Oh, my country! my country!" exclaimed he; "what are my personal
griefs to thine? It is your afflictions that barb me to the heart!
Look there," cried he to the soldiers, pointing to the miserable
spectacles before him; "look there, and carry vengeance into the
breasts of their destroyers. Let Praga be the last act of this
tragedy."
"Unhappy young man! unfortunate country! It was indeed the last act of
a tragedy to which all Europe were spectators--a tragedy which the
nations witnessed without one attempt to stop or to delay its
dreadful catastrophe! Oh, how must virtue be lost when it is no
longer a matter of policy even to assume it." [Footnote: To answer
this, we must remember that Europe was then no longer what she was a
century before. Almost all her nations had turned from the doctrines
of "sound things," and more or less drank deeply of the cup of
infidelity, drugged for them by the flattering sophistries of
Voltaire. The draught was inebriation, and the wild consequences
burst asunder the responsibilities of man to man. The selfish
principle ruled, and balance of justice was then seen only aloft in
the heavens!]
After a long march through a dark and dismal night, the morning began
to break; and Thaddeus found himself on the southern side of that
little river which divides the territories of Sobieski from the woods
of Kobylka. Here, for the first time, he endured all the torturing
varieties of despair.
The once fertile fields were burnt to stubble; the cottages were yet
smoking from the ravages of the fire; and in place of smiling eyes
and thankful lips coming to meet him, he beheld the dead bodies of
his peasants stretched on the high roads, mangled, bleeding, and
stripped of that decent covering which humanity would not deny to the
vilest criminal.
Thaddeus could bear the sight no longer, but, setting spurs to his
horse, fled from the contemplation of scenes which harrowed up his
soul.
At nightfall, the army halted under the walls of Villanow. The count
looked towards the windows of the palace, and by a light shining
through the half-drawn curtains, distinguished his mother's room. He
then turned his eye on that sweep of building which contained the
palatine's apartments; but not one solitary lamp illumined its gloom:
the moon alone glimmered on the battlements, silvering the painted
glass of the study window, where, with that beloved parent, he had so
lately gazed upon the stars, and anticipated with the most sanguine
hopes the result of the campaign which had now terminated so
disastrously for his unhappy country.
But these thoughts, with his grief and his forebodings, were buried
in the depths of his determined heart. Addressing General Wawrzecki,
he bade him welcome to Villanow, requesting at the same time that his
men might be directed to rest till morning, and that he and the
officers would take their refreshment within the palace.
As soon as Thaddeus had seen his guests seated at different tables in
the eating-hall, and had given orders for the soldiers to be served
from the buttery and cellars, he withdrew to seek the countess. He
found her in her chamber, surrounded by the attendants who had just
informed her of his arrival. The moment he appeared at the room door,
the women went out at an opposite passage, and Thaddeus, with a
bursting heart, threw himself on the bosom of his mother. They were
silent for some time. Poignant recollection stopped their utterance;
but neither tears nor sighs filled its place, until the countess, on
whose soul the full tide of maternal affection pressed, and mingled
with her grief, raised her head from her son's neck, and said, whilst
she strained him in her arms, "Receive my thanks, O Father of mercy,
for having spared to me this blessing!"
Thaddeus Sobieski (all that now remained of that beloved and honored
name!) with a sacred emotion breathed a response to the address of
his mother, and drying her tears with his kisses, dwelt upon the
never-dying fame of his revered grandfather, upon his preferable lot
to that of their brave friend Kosciusko, who was doomed not only to
survive the liberty of his country, but to pass the residue of his
life within the dungeons of his enemies. He then tried to reanimate
her spirits with hope. He spoke of the approaching battle, without
any doubt of the valor and desperation of the Poles rendering it
successful. He talked of the resolution of their leader, General
Wawrzecki, and of his own good faith in the justice of their cause.
His discourse began in a wish to cheat her into tranquillity; but as
he advanced on the subject, his soul took fire at its own warmth, and
he half believed the probability of his anticipations.
The countess looked on the honorable glow which crimsoned his
harassed features with a pang at her heart.
"My heroic son!" cried she, "my darling Thaddeus! what a vast price
do I pay for all this excellence! I could not love you were you
otherwise than what you are; and being what you are, oh, how soon may
I lose you! Already has your noble grandfather paid the debt which he
owed to his glory. He promised to fall with Poland; he has kept his
word; and now, all that I love on earth is concentrated in you." The
countess paused, and pressing his hand almost wildly on her heart,
she continued in a hurried voice, "The same spirit is in your breast;
the same principle binds you; and I may be at last left alone. Heaven
have pity on me!"
She cast her eyes upward as she ended. Thaddeus, sinking on his knees
by her side, implored her with all the earnestness of piety and
confidence to take comfort. The countess embraced him with a forced
smile. "You must forgive me, Thaddeus; I have nothing of the soldier
in my heart: it is all woman. But I will not detain you longer from
the rest you require; go to your room, and try and recruit yourself
for the dangers to-morrow will bring forth. I shall employ the night
in prayers for your safety."
Consoled to see any composure in his mother, he withdrew, and after
having heard that his numerous guests were properly lodged, went to
his own chamber.
Next morning at sunrise the troops prepared to march. General
Wawrzecki, with his officers, begged permission to pay their personal
gratitude to the countess for the hospitality of her reception; but
she declined the honor, on the plea of indisposition. In the course
of an hour, her son appeared from her apartment and joined the
general.
The soldiers filed off through the gates, crossed the bridge, and
halted under the walls of Praga. The lines of the camp were drawn and
fortified before evening, at which time they found leisure to observe
the enemy's strength.
Russia seemed to have exhausted her wide regions to people the narrow
shores of the Vistula; from east to west, as far as the eye could
reach, her arms were stretched to the horizon. Sobieski looked at
them, and then on the handful of intrepid hearts contained in the
small circumference of the Polish camp. Sighing heavily, he retired
into his tent; and vainly seeking repose, mixed his short and
startled slumbers with frequent prayers for the preservation of these
last victims to their country.
The hours appeared to stand still. Several times he rose from his bed
and went to the door, to see whether the clouds were tinged with any
appearance of dawn. All continued dark. He again returned to his
marquée, and standing by the lamp which was nearly exhausted, took
out his watch, and tried to distinguish the points; but finding that
the light burned too feebly, he was pressing the repeating spring,
which struck five, when the report of a single musket made him start.
He flew to his tent door, and looking around, saw that all near his
quarter was at rest. Suspecting it to be a signal of the enemy, he
hurried towards the intrenchments, but found the sentinels in perfect
security from any fears respecting the sound, as they supposed it to
have proceeded from the town.
Sobieski paid little attention to their opinions, but ascending the
nearest bastion to take a wider survey, in a few minutes he
discerned, though obscurely, through the gleams of morning, what
appeared to be the whole host of Russia advancing in profound silence
towards the Polish lines. The instant he made this discovery, he came
down, and lost no time in giving orders for the defence; then flying
to other parts of the camp, he awakened the commander-in-chief,
encouraged the men, and saw that the whole encampment was not only in
motion, but prepared for the assault.
In consequence of these prompt arrangements, the assailants were
received with a cross-fire of the batteries, and case-shot and
musketry from several redoubts, which raked their flanks as they
advanced. But in defiance of this shower of bullets, they pressed on
with an intrepidity worthy of a better cause, and overleaping the
ditch by squadrons, entered the camp. A passage once secured, the
Cossacks rushed in by thousands, and spreading themselves in front of
the storming party, put every soul to the spear who opposed them.
The Polish works being gained, the enemy turned the cannon on its
former masters, and as they rallied to the defence of what remained,
swept them down by whole regiments. The noise of artillery thundered
from all sides of the camp; the smoke was so great, that it was
hardly possible to distinguish friends from foes; nevertheless, the
spirits of the Poles flagged not a moment; as fast as one rampart was
wrested from them, they threw themselves within another, which was as
speedily taken by the help of hurdles, fascines, ladders, and a
courage as resistless as it was ferocious, merciless, and sanguinary.
Every spot of vantage position was at length lost; and yet the Poles
fought like lions; quarter was neither offered to them nor required;
they disputed every inch of ground, until they fell upon it in heaps,
some lying before the parapets, others filling the ditches and the
rest covering the earth, for the enemy to tread on as they cut their
passage to the heart of the camp.
Sobieski, almost maddened by the scene, dripping with his own blood
and that of his brave friends, was seen in every part of the action;
he was in the fosse, defending the trampled bodies of the dying; he
was on the dyke, animating the few who survived. Wawrzecki was
wounded, and every hope hung upon Thaddeus. His presence and voice
infused new energy into the arms of his fainting countrymen; they
kept close to his side, until the victors, enraged at the dauntless
intrepidity of this young hero, uttered the most fearful
imprecations, and rushing on his little phalanx, attacked it with
redoubled numbers and fury.
Sobieski sustained the shock with firmness; but wherever he turned
his eyes, they were blasted with some object which made them recoil;
he beheld his companions and his soldiers strewing the earth, and
their triumphant adversaries mounting their dying bodies, as they
hastened with loud huzzas to the destruction of Praga, whose gates
were now burst open. His eyes grew dim at the sight, and at the very
moment in which he tore them from spectacles so deadly to his heart,
a Livonian officer struck him with a sabre, to all appearance dead
upon the field.
When he recovered from the blow, (which, having lit on the steel of
his cap, had only stunned him,) he looked around, and found that all
near him was quiet; but a far different scene presented itself from
the town. The roar of cannon and the bursting of bombs thundered
through the air, which was rendered livid and tremendous by long
spires of fire streaming from the burning houses, and mingling with
the volumes of smoke which rolled from the guns. The dreadful tocsin,
and the hurrahs of the victors, pierced the soul of Thaddeus.
Springing from the ground, he was preparing to rush towards the
gates, when loud cries of distress issued from within. They were
burst open, and a moment after, the grand magazine blew up with a
horrible explosion.
In an instant the field before Praga was filled with women and
children, flying in all directions, and rending the sky with their
shrieks. "Father Almighty!" cried Thaddeus, wringing his hands,
"canst thou suffer this?" Whilst he yet spake, some straggling
Cossacks near the town, who were prowling about, glutted, but not
sated with blood, seized the poor fugitives, and with a ferocity as
wanton as unmanly, released them at once from life and misery.
This hideous spectacle brought his mother's defenceless state before
the eyes of Sobieski. Her palace was only four miles distant; and
whilst the barbarous avidity of the enemy was too busily engaged in
sacking the place to permit them to perceive a solitary individual
hurrying away amidst heaps of dead bodies, he flew across the
desolated meadows which intervened between Praga and Villanow.
Thaddeus was met at the gate of his palace by General Butzou, who,
having learned the fate of Praga from the noise and flames in that
quarter, anticipated the arrival of some part of the victorious army
before the walls of Villanow. When its young count, with a breaking
heart, crossed the drawbridge, he saw that the worthy veteran had
prepared everything for a stout resistance; the ramparts were lined
with soldiers, and well mounted with artillery.
"Here, thou still honored Sobieski," cried he, as he conducted
Thaddeus to the keep; "let the worst happen, here I am resolved to
dispute the possession of your grandfather's palace until I have not
a man to stand by me!" [Footnote: It was little more than just a
century before this awful scene took place that the invincible John
Sobieski, King of Poland, acting upon the old mutually protecting
principles of Christendom, saved the freedom and the faith of
Christian Europe from the Turkish yoke. And in this very mansion he
passed his latter years in honored peace. He died in 1694--a
remarkable coincidence, the division of Poland occurring in 1794.]
Thaddeus strained him in silence to his breast; and after examining
the force and dispositions, he approved all with a cold despair of
their being of any effectual use, and went to the apartments of his
mother.
The countess's women, who met him in the vestibule, begged him to be
careful how he entered her excellency's room, for she had only just
recovered from a swoon, occasioned by alarm at hearing the cannonade
against the Polish camp. Her son waited for no more, but not hearing
their caution, threw open the door of the chamber, and hastening to
his mother's couch, cast himself into her arms. She clung round his
neck, and for a while joy stopped her respiration. Bursting into
tears, she wept over him, incapable of expressing by words her
tumultuous gratitude at again beholding him alive. He looked on her
altered and pallid features.
"O! my mother," cried he clasping her to his breast; "you are ill;
and what will become of you?"
"My beloved son!" replied she kissing his forehead through the
clotted blood that oozed from a cut on his temple; "my beloved son,
before our cruel murderers can arrive, I shall have found a refuge in
the bosom of my God."
Thaddeus could only answer with a groan. She resumed. "Give me your
hand. I must not witness the grandson of Sobieski given up to
despair; let your mother incite you to resignation. You see I have
not breathed a complaining word, although I behold you covered with
wounds." As she spoke, her eye pointed to the sash and handkerchief
which were bound round his thigh and arm. "Our separation will not be
long; a few short years, perhaps hours, may unite us forever in a
better world."
The count was still speechless; he could only press her hand to his
lips. After a pause, she proceeded--
"Look up, my dear boy! and attend to me. Should Poland become the
property of other nations, I conjure you, if you survive its fall, to
leave it. When reduced to captivity, it will no longer be an asylum
for a man of honor. I beseech you, should this happen, go that very
hour to England: that is a free country; and I have been told that
the people are kind to the unfortunate. Perhaps you will find that
Pembroke Somerset hath not quite forgotten Poland. Thaddeus! Why do
you delay to answer me? Remember, these are your mother's dying
words!"
"I will obey them, my mother!"
"Then," continued she, taking from her bosom a small miniature, "let
me tie this round your neck. It is the portrait of your father."
Thaddeus bent his head, and the countess fastened it under his neck-
cloth. "Prize this gift, my child; it is likely to be all that you
will now inherit either from me or that father. Try to forget his
injustice, my dear son; and in memory of me, never part with that
picture. O, Thaddeus! From the moment in which I first received it
until this instant, it has never been from my heart!"
"And it shall never leave mine," answered he, in a stifled voice,"
whilst I have being."
The countess was preparing to reply, when a sudden volley of firearms
made Thaddeus spring upon his feet. Loud cries succeeded. Women
rushed into the apartment, screaming, "The ramparts are stormed!" and
the next moment that quarter of the building rocked to its
foundation. The countess clung to the bosom of her son. Thaddeus
clasped her close to his breast, and casting up his petitioning eyes
to heaven, cried, "Shield of the desolate! grant me a shelter for my
mother!"
Another burst of cannon was followed by a heavy crash, and the most
piercing shrieks echoed through the palace. "All is lost!" cried a
soldier, who appeared for an instant at the room door, and then
vanished.
Thaddeus, overwhelmed with despair, grasped his sword, which had
fallen to the ground, and crying, "My mother, we will die together!"
would have given her one last and assuring embrace, when his eyes met
the sight of her before-agitated features tranquillized in death. She
fell from his palsied arms back on the couch, and he stood gazing on
her as if struck by a power which had benumbed all his faculties.
The tumult in the palace increased every moment; but he heard it not,
until Butzou, followed by two or three of his soldiers, ran into the
apartment, calling out "Count, save yourself!"
Sobieski still remained motionless. The general caught him by the
arm, and instantly covering the body of the deceased countess with
the mantle of her son, hurried his unconscious steps, by an opposite
door, through the state chambers into the gardens.
Thaddeus did not recover his recollection until he reached the
outward gate; then, breaking from the hold of his friend, was
returning to the sorrowful scene he had left, when Butzou, aware of
his intentions, just stopped him in time to prevent his rushing on
the bayonets of a party of the enemy's infantry, who were pursuing
them at full speed.
The count now rallied his distracted faculties, and making a stand,
with the general and his three Poles, they compelled this merciless
detachment to seek refuge among the arcades of the building.
Butzou would not allow his young lord to follow in that direction,
but hurried him across the park. He looked back, however; a column of
fire issued from the south towers. Thaddeus sighed, as if his life
were in that sigh, "All is indeed over;" and pressing his hand to his
forehead, in that attitude followed the steps of the general towards
the Vistula.
The wind being very high, the flame soon spread itself over the roof
of the palace, and catching at every combustible in its way, the
invaders became so terrified at the quick progress of fire which
threatened to consume themselves as well as their plunder, that they
quitted the spot with precipitation. Decrying the count and his
soldiers at a short distance, they directed their motions to that
point. Speedily confronting the brave fugitives, they blocked up a
bridge by a file of men with fixed pikes, and not only menaced the
Polanders as they advanced, but derided their means of resistance.
Sobieski, indifferent alike to danger and to insults, stopped short
to the left, and followed by his friends, plunged into the stream,
amidst a shower of musket-balls from the enemy. After hard buffeting
with the torrent, he at last reached the opposite bank, and was
assisted from the river by some of the weeping inhabitants of Warsaw,
who had been watching the expiring ashes of Praga, and the flames
then devouring the boasted towers of Villanow.
Emerged from the water, Thaddeus stood to regain his breath; and
leaning on the shoulder of Butzou, he pointed to his burning palace
with a smile of agony. "See," said he, "what a funeral pile Heaven
has given to the manes of my unburied mother!"
The general did not speak, for grief stopped his utterance; but
motioning the two soldiers to proceed, he supported the count into
the citadel.