I had left Dantzick, and I traversed Lithuania; the country was
dreary, it was made up of woods and steeps—an unlimited picture of
poverty and desolation. It was at that season of the year when Nature
displays her riches, yet vegetation was weak and drooping, every thing
in those fatal countries depicted wretchedness, every thing foretold
the disasters which were to overwhelm us.
The rain still continued, the roads were broken up, and impassable,
the men were losing themselves in the mud, and perishing from fatigue
and hunger: ten thousand horses lay lifeless on the ground that we had
gone over within these two days; never had such a frightful mortality
before signalized the commencement of a campaign; our soldiers,
continually sliding on the clayey ground, were exhausted in fruitless
exertions: most of them were unable to keep up, they lagged behind;
the allied troops especially had a prodigious number in arrear. It was
easy to foresee that the issue of the war would be disastrous: we had
in our favour force and courage, but Nature took part with them;—we
were to fall. However, I arrived at Wilna; I found there the Duke
de Bassano, whose prognostics were less gloomy, General Hogendorp,
Napoleon's aide-de-camp, with whom I was yet unacquainted, and General
Jomini, who afterwards deserted our colours. All augured better than
myself of the struggle in which we were engaged. It presented itself,
indeed, under specious auspices: all Poland was in motion; men, women,
peasants, citizens, gentlemen, all were animated with the most noble
enthusiasm; troops were organising, administrations were forming,
resources were collecting, and the people were preparing themselves
to drive oppression beyond the Borysthenes. The Diet of Warsaw had
opened; the Polish nation, which had so long been beaten by the
tempest, thought that it had at last reached a port; no sacrifice
seemed too much for it. The speech of the President had excited
general acclamations, every where it had been received with joy. I
was curious to read it; M. de Bassano gave it me. “It might have been
better,” he observed, “but still it is tolerable.” The Emperor would
have wished it stronger in facts, and its expressions less tinged with
the affectation of learning. It was the energy of the patriot, and not
the measured movements of the orator, that was necessary in so serious
a juncture; nevertheless it produced its effect.
“For a long time there had existed in the centre of Europe a
celebrated nation, mistress of an extensive and fruitful country,
brilliant with the double glory of war and arts, protecting for ages,
with an unwearied arm, the barriers of Europe against the barbarians
who raged around its frontiers. A numerous people prospered in this
land. Nature repaid their labours with liberality. Often had her kings
taken a place in history by the side of those who had most honoured
the supreme rank.
“This country is Poland; you are that people: but what are you become?
How has the dilaceration of our country been effected? How has this
family, which even when it was divided did not separate, which had
remained united through ages of divisions, how has this powerful
family seen itself dismembered? What have been its crimes, who its
judges? By what right has it been attacked, invaded, effaced from the
list of states and nations? Whence have the oppressors come, whence
the chains? The indignant universe would answer us—every state, every
people would tell us that it thought that it saw its tomb open by the
side of that of Poland; and that in the audacious profanation of the
laws on which all societies alike repose, in the insulting contempt
which was manifested for them to accomplish our ruin, the world
might think itself put in subjection to the temporary purposes of
monarchs, and that now it would have no other law. Europe, alarmed and
threatened, would point out to our just resentment the empire which,
while it caressed us, was particularly preparing to press upon her
with an increased force. It is Russia that is the author of all our
evils. Within a century she advances with gigantic stride towards a
people who before were ignorant of her name.
“Poland perceived immediately the first effects of this increase of
the Russian power. Placed in her immediate vicinity, she received
her first, as her last blows. Who could enumerate them from the time
when, in 1717, Russia tried her influence by the disbanding of the
Polish army? Since that epoch, what moment has been exempt from her
influence or her outrages? If this crafty power joined herself to
Poland, it is to impose on her, as in 1764, that fatal guarantee which
made the integrity of our frontiers dependent on the perpetuation of
anarchy; to make that anarchy the means of accomplishing her ambitious
designs. The world knows what they have been since that unlucky
epoch. It is since then that, by partition after partition, Poland
has been seen completely to disappear, without crime and without
vengeance; it is since that time that the Poles have heard with
indignation the insulting language of the Repnins, of the Sivers; it
is since then that the Russian soldier bathed himself in the blood of
their fellow-citizens, as a prelude to that for ever execrable day,
must we recall it, in which, in the midst of the shouts of a savage
conqueror, Warsaw heard the cries of the population of Prague, which
was destroyed by fire and murder. Pole, for it is time to make that
name which we should never lose resound in your ears, these are the
hateful means by which Russia has succeeded in appropriating to
herself our fine provinces; these are the claim, the only claim, she
possesses on us. Force alone could enchain us, force may also break
the fetters which she alone has forged. These fetters shall be broken.
Poland, then, shall exist,—what do we say? She exists already, or
rather she has never ceased to exist. How can the perfidy, the plots,
the violence, under which she has fallen—how can they have affected
her right? Yes, we are still Poland; we are so by the title that we
hold from nature, from society, from our ancestors, from those sacred
titles which the universe recognizes, and which form the safeguard of
mankind.”
I was carried away by enthusiasm. I had so often seen the brave Polish
legions in Italy, in Egypt, and elsewhere! They were right indeed,
they were still Poland. “In point of courage,” I said to the Duke,
“nothing will surprise me on the part of this brave people; but I own
I did not suspect it of this sort of talent.” “You are right,” replied
M. de Bassano, “they have plenty of other things to do than to make
harangues!” “Who, then, is the writer?” “The Abbé.” “What Abbé? Do
you think the Emperor has a predilection for churchmen?” “No; but in
fine, at the present time, it is not without powerful considerations
that an embassy is confided to a priest.” “Is it the Archbishop?”
“The very man; we have sent him to Warsaw to intoxicate the Poles by
his eloquence. I do not think him very skilful in business, but he is
entirely devoted to the Emperor;—that is the main affair. His enemies
accuse him of being ambitious and restless, without steadiness in his
affections, or in his ideas of praising white and black; of being the
mere creature of circumstance. I believe this picture a caricature. I
myself am persuaded that, if events compromise the glory of our arms,
he will not be seen among the ranks of our detractors.” “I firmly
believe it; he has abused the Cossacks too much ever to become their
patriarch.”
The deputation of the Diet was still at Wilna. I was acquainted with a
few of the members. I saw them; they talked to me of their hopes, of
their means, of their rights. These ideas struck me, I gave an account
of them to the Duke.—“You are admirable!” said he in reply. “What!
do you not recognize the Archbishop? Do you not see with what art he
betrays himself? and these biblical reminiscences, to whom would you
have them occur but to a priest. Besides I will give you the document.”
“Sire, the Diet of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, assembled at the
approach of the powerful armies of your Majesty, recognized at the
outset that it had rights to reclaim and duties to fulfil; with an
unanimous voice, it has constituted itself a general confederation
of Poland; it has declared the kingdom of Poland re-established in
its rights; and, at the same time, that the acts of usurpation and
arbitrary power, by which its existence had been destroyed, were null
and of no effect.
“Sire, your Majesty labours for posterity and for history. If Europe
cannot mistake our rights, she can still much less mistake our
duties. A free and independent nation, since the remotest times, we
have not lost our territory and our independence, either by treaties
or by conquest, but by perfidy and treachery. Treachery has never
constituted rights. We have seen our last king dragged away to St.
Petersburgh, where he perished; and our nation torn to shreds by
princes with whom we were not at war, and by whom we have not been
conquered.
“Our rights appear thus evident to the eyes of God and men. We, Poles,
we have the right to re-establish the throne of the Jagellons and
Sobieskis, to re-assert our national independence, to re-assemble our
divided members, to arm ourselves in defence of our native country,
and to prove, by fighting in its defence, that we are the worthy
descendants of our ancestors.
“Can your Majesty disown us or blame us, for having done that which
our duty, as Poles, demanded of us; and for having resumed our rights?
Yes, Sire. Poland is proclaimed from this day; she exists by the laws
of equity, but she ought to exist in fact; right and justice proclaim
our resolution to be legitimate; but it ought to be supported on our
part. Has not God punished Poland enough for its divisions? will he
perpetuate our misfortunes? and must the Poles, after having cherished
the love of their country, go down to the tomb wretched and without
hope? No, Sire. You have been sent by Providence, power is placed in
the hands of your Majesty, and the existence of the Grand Duchy is due
to the power of your arms.
“Say, Sire, Let the kingdom of Poland exist! and the decree will be
to the world equivalent to the reality. We are sixteen millions of
Poles, among whom there is not one whose blood, arms, and fortune,
are not devoted to your Majesty: every sacrifice will appear to us
light, if it has for its object the reestablishment of our native
country. From the Dwina to the Dniester, from the Borysthenes to the
Oder, one word only from your Majesty will command every arm, every
effort, every heart. This unexampled war which Russia has dared to
declare, notwithstanding the recollections of Austerlitz, Pultusk,
Eylau, Friedland; in spite of the oaths taken at Tilsit and at
Erfurth, is, we have no doubt, an effect of Providence, which, moved
by the misfortunes of our nation, has determined to bring them to a
termination. The second Polish war has only just begun, and already
we pay our homage to your Majesty in the capital of the Jagellons.
Already are the eagles of your Majesty on the Dwina, and the armies of
Russia, separated, divided, cut up, wander in uncertainty, and seek in
vain to unite and to form themselves, &c.”
“It is well.—Yes, undoubtedly; but he is so enchanted with the
_chef-d'œuvre_, that he would think himself wanting to his glory if he
did not publish to the world that his genius protects Poland. Twenty
times a-day I am obliged to moderate these excesses of self-love. This
very morning I have been remonstrating with him on the impropriety
of his freaks of vanity. He _Ossianizes_; do you recollect the word?
It describes him admirably. But now, if his style goes well, his
embassy scarcely moves. But for Duroc, who covers him with his wing,
I would have already sent him to his flocks. What the devil has the
almonership in common with embassies? Why should he put himself to the
trouble of so much exertion, to do nothing of any possible use?”