SPECIMENS OF PUBLIC VIRTUE. 285 



Under these circumstances, the crown of Poland was all but an in- 

 viting object of a contest, or even a wish. On a former occasion, as 

 many as fourteen candidates to the royal dignity appeared before the 

 bar of the nation. Now, neither Germany, that nursery of expectant 

 kings, could muster a single prince ; nor France propose a conde or a 

 conti ; nor even the Pope present, as formerly, a natural son to the 

 throne of the most orthodox kings. And still the streets of Warsaw, 

 on the day when the diet, the duty of which consisted in fixing the 

 election of the new monarch, was to be opened, swarmed with men 

 of every nation, like as many followers of the pretenders to the 

 Polish crown. From two to three hundred different uniforms pre- 

 sented a motley group of costumes, now only to be found in the 

 oriental fairs. 



But the sun, which on that day (the 7th of May, 1 764) shone over 

 this scene of gaiety a flattering testimony of the national importance 

 brightened at the same time the bayonets of the Russian army en- 

 camped in Warsaw ; a humiliation to all, and an eternal disgrace to 

 those who called an armed foreigner in aid of their designs. That 

 party, headed by the family of Czartoryski, supported the minion of 

 Catherine, who, yet warm from the embrace of the northern prosti- 

 tute, presented himself to the choice of the nation. Stanislaus Po- 

 niatowski, a young, inexperienced, and feeble man, laid his claims to 

 the highest dignity in the kingdom. That was enough to range every 

 patriot, every heart alive to national honour, on the opposite side. 

 The only foreign candidate, the rickety son of the former king, having 

 died, the claims of General Branicki were opposed to those of Cathe- 

 rine's favourite. 



The elections of the liberal members having been every where 

 prevented by the intrigues, backed by the Russian arms ; and the issue 

 of the diet, which was to legislate under the same auspices, being no 

 more doubtful, it was to the interest of the opposition to impede the 

 meeting of that representative body. But the liberum veto, which 

 struck the deadly blow on the Polish liberty ; now, when it could 

 save her, or at least procrastinate her total destruction, was of no 

 avail. 



Early on that morning the Russian army marched out of town. 

 Formed there in battle array, it was ready to act at a moment's 

 notice. Their numerous sentinels and scouts occupy the principal 

 streets, and keep the communication with the houses of two ambas- 

 sadors of Catherine. Five hundred grenadiers invest the one, and as 

 many the other of those two head-quarters those two centres of 

 action. The royal castle, where the diet had its sittings, that vene- 

 rated pile is invaded by the barbarians, They guard all the issues, 

 throng all passages, rush into the gallery reserved for the public, and 

 even pollute with their touch the seats of the nuncios. Those halls, 

 which had rung so many times with joyous acclamations at the tidings 

 of victories won over the Moscovites, and re-echoed the brilliant 

 accounts of the victorious chiefs ; those halls, which beheld once two 

 fettered czars led in triumph to its precincts, resounded now with 

 the clash of arms of the insolent foreigner, who never yet withstood 

 in an open field the vigour of the Polish charge. It is among those 



