POLISH HISTORY. 83 



and enjoyed all the royal prerogatives but that of dispen- 

 sing justice. His duty also was to summon the extra- 

 ordinary diet when the throne became vacant, and to 

 preside at that assembly. 



' The diet which thus assembled on the death of a king 

 of Poland to elect a sovereign to occupy the vacant throne 

 was not unfrequently characterised by the most sangui- 

 nary proceedings. This assembly, which consisted of the 

 senate, of the representatives of districts, uf the clergy, 

 and the nobles the latter a most numerous body met 

 on horseback in a plain adjoining the village of Wohla in 

 the neighbourhood of Warsaw. Though the electors were 

 prohibited from appearing at the meeting attended by 

 any body guard, they yet uniformly came armed with 

 pistols and sabres, prepared to perpetrate the greatest 

 excesses. Every member of the diet, as previously men- 

 tioned, was entitled to call for a division of the assembly 

 on any question, or to put an end to the deliberations, or 

 even the existence of the assembly, merely by protesting 

 against its proceedings. This singular and absurd 

 privilege, which was frequently exercised in those meet- 

 ings of unenlightened and violent men, was productive of 

 the most fatal consequences. It often led the stronger 

 party to attack, on the spot, their antagonists, sword in 

 hand j and it not unfrequently formed the origin of civil 

 wars, by which the resources and the stability of the nation 

 were undermined, patriotism extinguished, and the pro- 

 gress of liberal knowledge retarded. Before the successful 

 candidate was proclaimed king, he had to sign the Pacta 

 C'jnventa, or the conditions on which he obtained the crown, 

 which, on his knees, he had to swear never to violate. 



'Such was the ancient constitution of Poland, 

 monarchy blended with aristocracy, in which, for several 

 centuries previously to its dissolution, the latter prevailed. 

 The Poles, indeed, denominated their government a 

 republic, because the king, so extremely limited in his 

 prerogative, resembled more the chief of a commonwealth 

 than the sovereign of a monarchy. But it wanted one of 



