AND HIS PRINCESS. (53 



was guarantied to Poland as an independent kingdom declared, that 

 the viceroyalty should be ever vested in a Polish nobleman of the 

 imperial appointment; but this, like the great majority of the clauses 

 in that unfortunate charter, soon became a neglected theory. Since 

 the decease of the first and last viceroy, who died in 1825, the office 

 had been in abeyance, the duties became a nullity, the place was 

 intentionally left unfilled, and Constantine became the Dionysius of 

 Poland. So much for constitutions manufactured at a congress and 

 guarantied at convenience by friendly powers. But I turn willingly 

 from so miserable a picture of careless legislation and neglect on the 

 one side, and broken faith on the other, which have made a brave 

 people their victims. 



By degrees, and by comparing the anecdotes which now and then 

 flitted in whispers from mouth to mouth with the singular circum- 

 stances in which I was placed, it became sufficiently evident to me 

 that my detention in Warsaw was owing, not to any real or supposed 

 irregularity in my passport, but to some designing trickery or con- 

 nivance on the part of Constantine; for many posts had arrived 

 which might have brought back the expected document, and still the 

 answer to my daily inquiries at the post-office was in the negative. 

 At last the suspicions which I already entertained of some under- 

 hand dealing were confirmed, by my being made aware that every 

 private letter which passed through the post-office was opened and 

 read, and many detained or destroyed, under the especial orders, 

 and sometimes the personal interference, of the Grand Duke ; 

 but still his repeated and marked attentions to me, the many private 

 interviews with which he honoured me, and the kindness with which 

 he found me a home when I stood most in need of it, (for Sass, at 

 his request, took me into his house) tended rather to lull, when they 

 ought, perhaps, to have awakened, any doubts I might have enter- 

 tained as to his ultimate intentions towards me. It must be recol- 

 lected too, that, although I was a witness of much of his bearish 

 roughness and intemperance in private, yet no instances of the 

 wanton, and, 1 may almost say, diabolical spirit with which his 

 public character was so deeply seared, had been brought under my 

 immediate observation ; so that it is not wonderful that I forgot, or 

 to speak more correctly, hardly dreamt, that I was little better than 

 a prisoner on parole in Warsaw. But, in spite of his kindness, I 

 feared as well as mistrusted him : dreading his violence of temper 

 and suspecting his motives, I was never at ease in his presence, and 

 always on thorns lest some ill-considered phrase or doubtful ex- 

 pression should rouse the angry passions of the slumbering bear ; 

 indeed, there were times when I almost trembled before him. 



Three or four times a week I received commands to attend his 

 levee, and not unfrequently invitations to breakfast, a meal which he 

 commonly took about eleven o'clock in the day. On these occasions 

 he seemed to take considerable pleasure in all I could tell him of 

 England and its modes and customs its army, its capital, and its 

 domestic and commercial resources. If on some of these subjects I 

 confessed my ignorance, he would eye me with a doubting and 

 suspicious glance, urge me again and again on the same point, as if 



