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XXVI.

CHAP. 29th. He was dragged from his horse, and the sabre was already at his throat, when he was saved by the earnest entreaties of Chlopicki.

1830.

22.

seizes the dictatorship.

Dec. 5.

Taking advantage of this universal enthusiasm, the Chlopicki administrative council began to take steps for the formation of a powerful national army. The Diet was convoked for the 18th December. A hundred thousand national guards were ordered to be put on permanent duty, and efforts made to raise corps of volunteers in various quarters. But this measure was far from corresponding to the ardent passions of the people, which were daily increasing, and soon reached such a point that the administrative council saw they were no longer able to stem or direct the torrent. They resigned accordingly, and a provisional government, composed of Prince Czartoryski, Kochanowski, Pac, Dembrowski, Niemcewicz, Lelewel, and Ladislaus Ostrowski, of their own authority, but with general consent, took possession of the government. It soon appeared, however, that a single authority was required, disorders were increasing on all sides; and Chlopicki, who had been appointed commander-in-chief of the army and national guards, cut the matter short by declaring that he would accept the command on no other terms but that of being declared dictator. On the 5th December he suddenly entered the hall where the Government was sitting, and after breaking out into a violent invective against the disorders of the people, the fury of the clubs, and the insubordination of the army, he said, "It is time to put a period to these vacillations. The country, in such grave circumstances, stands in need of a man devoted to its cause, and who will watch over its

i. 105, 106;

interests. I take upon myself the dictatorship-a burRom. Solt. den which I will relinquish with joy when the Diet Ann. Hist. meets."1 Such was the universal sense of the necessity of 661. the measure, that although these words were wholly unexpected, and excited at first unbounded astonishment, they

xiii. 660,

provoked no resistance, and Chlopicki assumed without CHAP. opposition the functions of dictator.

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his biogra

character.

It is one thing to assume the government of a country when it opens the prospect of a pacific or glorious reign; Chlopicki: it is another, and a very different thing, when it seems phy and the avenue only to danger, difficulty, and death. The seizure of power by Chlopicki proceeded from very different motives, and was a very different thing, from that of Napoleon. The character of the two men was not less opposite; unfortunately for Poland, their intellectual capacities were not less dissimilar. Chlopicki was a noble character,-a brave soldier, a devoted patriot, a great general; but he wanted the audacity and recklessness necessary for success in revolutions. Born of a noble but not illustrious family, he had entered the army in 1790, and made the disastrous campaign of 1794 under Kosciusko. After the fall of Poland in the close of that year, he entered the Polish Legion, which was organised in Italy under the orders of Dembrowski, and bore a part in all the glorious actions under Napoleon by which its career was distinguished. At the head of the 1st regiment of the Vistula he signalised himself in the campaigns of 1806 and 1807 in Prussia and Poland, and not less so in the chequered fields of Spain. In 1812 he was appointed general of brigade by Napoleon, and in that capacity was distinguished at the battles of Smolensko and Valoutino, in the last of which he was wounded. In 1814, when Poland fell again under the dominion of Russia, he had risen to the rank of general of division; but he quitted the service soon after the accession of Constantine to the viceroyalty, in consequence of an i. 100, 104. altercation with that irascible prince.1

Accustomed to military rules and subordination, Chlopicki had a perfect horror for conspiracies and the domination of clubs. Accordingly, he kept himself entirely clear of the great conspiracies of 1825 and 1826,

1 Rom. Solt.

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in regard to

tion.

CHAP. connected with the insurrection in Russia in those years, and lived in retirement down to 1830. He was inspired with a thorough contempt for levies en masse, and all His views those devices by which the ardent but inexperienced in the revolu- all ages endeavour to supply the want of regular soldiers. He dreaded the clubs of Warsaw even more than the Muscovite bayonets. It was his great object to achieve the liberation of his country and the establishment of its rights by other means than democratic fervour, which he considered as alike short-lived and perilous. Thus he was the man of all others least calculated to retain the suffrages of the clubs of Warsaw, which early acquired so great a weight in the revolution; and one of his first steps, after he became dictator, was to close them by a general military order. But he possessed an immense military reputation, and was known to have military talents of the very highest order, which rendered his sway over the soldiers unbounded; and as his patriotism was undoubted, and his character elevated and disinterested, his rule was for some time unresisted even by the burning democrats of the capital. He despised and detested them as much as Napoleon did the "avocats et idéologues" of Paris; and it was his great object, without their aid, and while retaining the direction of their movements, to work out the independence of Poland by negotiation with the Czar, and without coming to open rupture with his authority. But to achieve this object he was well aware that military preparations were indispensable, and his measures to i. 104, 107. attain this end, though not of the sweeping kind which the clubs demanded, were energetic and successful.1

1 Rom. Solt.

25.

military

preparations.

His first care was to organise a considerable increase Chlopicki's to the regular army, which he effected by several decrees recalling all the old soldiers to their standards, and calling out the first bans of the levy en masse, embracing all persons between twenty and thirty years of age, which was estimated as producing eighty thousand men. Those from thirty to fifty, who were also to be enrolled, but not

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moved from their homes, would, it was calculated, pro- CHAP. duce two hundred thousand more. The national guard of Warsaw alone was twenty thousand strong-an immense force in a city at that period containing not more than a hundred and forty thousand souls. The regular army was by this means raised to forty-five thousand men; and officers, though by no means in adequate numbers, were obtained for the national guard from the retired officers-nearly three thousand in number-who existed in Poland. At the same time, cannons were made with the metal of bells melted down, muskets were manufactured with the utmost rapidity, and considerable purchases of arms made in foreign states. Several battalions in the country were, in default of better weapons, armed with the scythes which they used in husbandry. Patriotic gifts flowed in on all sides; the ladies, even of the highest rank, were employed night and day in preparing bandages and sheets for the wounded; and considerable stores of ammunition and provisions were laid in by the Government. Everything, however, was done by the authority of and through the Government; and not only were several tenders of volunteer corps. refused, but several free bands of some thousand horse, which had formed themselves in the forests, were disbanded. To this repression of the republican spirit at the outset of the insurrection, the patriotic writers of Poland ascribe much of the misfortunes which afterwards befell them; but, in the mean time, Chlopicki deemed himself more than compensated for its loss by the surrender of the fortresses of Modlin and Zamosc, which xiii. 661; opened their gates at the first summons of the patriotic i. 116, 140. forces.1

1 Ann. Hist.

Rom. Solt.

26.

conduct of

While these events were in progress in Poland, Constantine, irresolute and dejected, was moving by slow Strange marches towards Russia. A mutual intercourse of civi- Constanlities took place between him and Chlopicki. The Polish tine. dictator sent to the Grand-duke eight hundred Russian

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CHAP. soldiers who had been surrounded and disarmed near Warsaw, without exchange; and the Grand-duke, in return, treated kindly and hospitably entertained such of the Polish troops as he met on the road to Russia, hastening to their respective corps. The strange character of the Prince strongly appeared on these occasions. "There," said he, " is another of my brave Polish soldiers: ah! the Polish army is the first in the world;" then, approaching the man, he would say, "But your belts are not straight: see that you put them on better the next time." Then he would break out into the most violent invectives against the Polish troops for their ingratitude and shameful return for all his kindness, and conclude by again praising them, and dismissing them to a copious repast. The generals who surrounded him, if less generous, were more consistent in their language. Looking at the white ribbons and cockades, the national colour of Poland, which were on the breasts of the soldiers, they said, "You do well to mount white cockades, for they will show off the scarlet. They will soon be stained with your blood." 1

1 Rom. Solt. i. 94, 95.

27.

Clinging to the last to the hope of a reconciliation with Unsuccess- the Czar, Chlopicki, soon after his seizure of the dictations with torship, sent a deputation to St Petersburg, consisting of Nicholas. Prince Lubecki, the Minister of Finance, and Count

ful negotia

Jezierski, to explain the causes of the insurrection, the

* "J'ai tout oublié," said the Grand-duke, " car je suis au fond meilleur Polonais que vous tous. Je suis marié à une Polonaise, je suis établi parmi vous. Je vous ai donné des preuves de mes sentimens en défendant aux troupes Impériales de tirer. Si j'avais voulu, on vous aurait anéantis dans le premier moment. J'étais le seul dans mon état-major qui voulût qu'on ne tirât pas; car j'ai pensé que dans une querelle Polonaise les Russes n'avaient rien à faire. J'aurais désiré que nous pussions entrer parmi vous; nous avons tous des liens bien chers à Varsovie; mais votre gouvernement m'a fait dire par la députation que je devais m'en aller ou me mettre à la tête des troupes Polonaises pour rentrer dans la capitale. J'ai refusé ce parti pour ne pas être rebelle à mon souverain: Jamais je ne jouerai le rôle du Prince d'Orange. Mais mon cœur a été navré, je l'avoue, et ce qui me peine le plus c'est que cette révolution a été teinte de sang, et marquée de rapines. La postérité accusera de barbarie cette armée et cette nation Polonaise que j'aimais tant, et fera peser cette tâche ineffaçable sur leur mémoire.”—CAPEFIGUE, iv. 58, 59.

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