Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland Volume II Part 6

A few words with regard to the Jews in Poland. From the moment of crossing the borders of Lithuania, I had remarked in every town and village swarms of people differing entirely from the other inhabitants in physical appearance and costume, and in whose sharply-drawn features, long beards, and flowing dresses, with the coal-black eyes and oriental costumes of the women, I at once recognised the dispersed and wandering children of Israel. On the second destruction of Jerusalem, when the Roman general drove a plough over the site of the Temple of Solomon, the political existence of the Jewish nation was annihilated, their land was portioned out among strangers, and the descendants of Abraham were forbidden to pollute with their presence the holy city of their fathers.

In the Roman territories, their pet.i.tion for the reduction of taxation received the stern answer of the Roman, "Ye demand exemption from tribute for your soil; I will lay it on the air you breathe;" and, in the words of the historian, "Dispersed and vagabond, exiled from their native soil and air, they wander over the face of the earth without a king, either human or divine, and even as strangers they are not permitted to salute with their footsteps their native land." History furnishes no precise records of the emigration or of the first settlement of the Israelites in the different countries of Europe; but for centuries they have been found dispersed, as it was foretold they would be, over the whole habitable world, a strange, unsocial, and isolated people, a living and continued miracle. At this day they are found in all the civilized countries of Europe and America, in the wildest regions of Asia and Africa, and even within the walls of China; but, after Palestine, Poland is regarded as their Land of Promise; and there they present a more extraordinary spectacle than in any country where their race is known. Centuries have rolled on, revolutions have convulsed the globe, new and strange opinions have disturbed the human race, but the Polish Jew remains unchanged: the same as the dark superst.i.tion of the middle ages made him; the same in his outward appearance and internal dispositions, in his physical and moral condition, as when he fled thither for refuge from the swords of the crusaders.

As early as the fourteenth century, great privileges were secured to the Jews by Casimir the Great, who styled them his "faithful and able subjects," induced, according to the chronicles of the times, like Ahasuerus of old, by the love of a beautiful Esther. While in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and even in England and France, their whole history is that of one continued persecution, oppressed by the n.o.bles, anathematized by the clergy, despised and abhorred by the populace, flying from city to city, arrested, and tortured, and burned alive, and sometimes destroying themselves by thousands to escape horrors worse than death; while all orders were arrayed in fierce and implacable hatred against them, in Poland the race of Israel found rest; and there they remain at this day, after centuries of residence, still a distinct people, strangers and sojourners in the land, mingling with their neighbours in the every-day business of life, but never mingling their blood; the direct descendants of the Israelites who, three thousand years ago, went out from the land of Egypt; speaking the same language, and practising the laws delivered to Moses on the mountain of Sinai; mourning over their fallen temple, and still looking for the Messiah who shall bring together their scattered nation and restore their temporal kingdom.

But notwithstanding the interest of their history and position, the Polish Jews are far from being an interesting people; they swarm about the villages and towns, intent on gain, and monopolizing all the petty traffic of the country. Outward degradation has worked inward upon their minds; confined to base and sordid occupations, their thoughts and feelings are contracted to their stations, and the despised have become despicable. It was princ.i.p.ally in his capacity of innkeeper that I became acquainted with the Polish Jew. The inn is generally a miserable hovel communicating with, or a room part.i.tioned off in one corner of, a large shed serving as a stable and yard for vehicles; the entrance is under a low porch of timber; the floor is of dirt; the furniture consists of a long table, or two or three small ones, and in one corner a bunch of straw, or sometimes a few raised boards formed into a platform, with straw spread over it, for beds; at one end a narrow door leads into a sort of hole filled with dirty beds, old women, half-grown boys and girls, and children not overburdened with garments, and so filthy that, however fatigued, I never felt disposed to venture among them for rest. Here the Jew, a.s.sisted by a dirty-faced Rachel, with a keen and anxious look, pa.s.ses his whole day in serving out to the meanest customers beer, and hay, and corn; wrangling with and extorting money from intoxicated peasants; and, it is said, sometimes, after the day's drudgery is over, retires at night to his miserable hole to pore over the ponderous volumes filled with rabbinical lore; or sometimes his mind takes a higher flight, meditating upon the nature of the human soul; its relation to the Divinity; the connexion between the spirit and the body; and indulging in the visionary hope of gaining, by means of cabalistic formula, command over the spirits of the air, the fire, the flood, and the earth.

Though the days of bitter persecution and hatred have gone by, the Jews are still objects of contempt and loathing. Once I remember pointing out to my postillion a beautiful Jewish girl, and, with the fanatic spirit of the middle ages, himself one of the most degraded serfs in Poland, he scorned the idea of marrying the fair daughter of Israel. But this the Jew does not regard; all he asks is to be secured from the active enmity of mankind. "Like the haughty Roman banished from the world, the Israelite throws back the sentence of banishment, and still retreats to the lofty conviction that his race is not excluded as an unworthy, but kept apart as a sacred, people; humiliated, indeed, but still hallowed, and reserved for the sure though tardy fulfilment of the Divine promises."

The Jews in Poland are still excluded from all offices and honours, and from all the privileges and distinctions of social life. Until the accession of Nicolas, they were exempted from military service on payment of a tax; but since his time they have been subject to the regular conscription. They regard this as an alarming act of oppression, for the boys are taken from their families at twelve or thirteen, and sent to the army or the common military school, where they imbibe notions utterly at variance with the principles taught them by their fathers; and, probably, if the system continues, another generation will work a great change in the character of the Jews of Poland.

But to return to the Jews at Minsk. As usual, they gathered around us before we were out of our kibitka, laid hold of our baggage, and in Hebrew, Lithuanian, and Polish, were clamorous in offers of service.

They were spare in figure, dressed in high fur caps and long black muslin gowns, s.h.i.+ning and glossy from long use and tied around the waist with a sash; and here I remarked what has often been remarked by other travellers, when the features were at rest, a style of face and expression resembling the pictures of the Saviour in the galleries in Italy. While my companion was arranging for posthorses and dinner, I strolled through the town alone, that is, with a dozen Israelites at my heels and on my return I found an accession of the stiff-necked and unbelieving race, one of whom arrested my attention by thrusting before me a silver coin. It was not an antique, but it had in my eyes a greater value than if it had been dug from the ruins of a buried city, and bore the image of Julius Caesar. On the breaking out of the late revolution, one of the first acts of sovereignty exercised by the provincial government was to issue a national coin stamped with the arms of the old kingdom of Poland, the white eagle and the armed cavalier, with an inscription around the rim, "G.o.d protect Poland." When the revolution was crushed, with the view of destroying in the minds of the Poles every memento of their brief but glorious moment of liberty, this coin was called in and suppressed, and another subst.i.tuted in its place, with the Polish eagle, by way of insult, stamped in a small character near the tip end of the wing of the double-headed eagle of Russia. The coin offered me by the Jew was one of the emission of the revolution, and my companion told me it was a rare thing to find one. I bought it at the Jew's price, and put it in my pocket as a memorial of a brave and fallen people.

I will not inflict upon the reader the particulars of our journey through this dreary and uninteresting country. We travelled constantly, except when we were detained for horses. We never stopped at night, for there seldom was any shelter on the road better than the Jews' inns, and even in our kibitka we were better than there. But, unluckily, on the seventh day, our kibitka broke down; the off hind wheel snapped in pieces, and let us down rather suddenly in one of the autocrat's forests. Our first impulse was to congratulate ourselves that this accident happened in daylight; and we had a narrow escape, for the sun had hardly begun to find its way into the dark forest. Fortunately, too, we were but two or three versts from a posthouse. I had met with such accidents at home, and rigged a small tree (there being no such things as rails, property there not being divided by rail fences) under the hind axle, supporting it on the front. We lighted our pipes and escorted our crippled vehicle to the posthouse, where we bought a wheel off another wagon, much better than the old one, only about two inches lower. This, however, was not so bad as might be supposed, at least for me, who sat on the upper side, and had the stout figure of my companion as a leaning-post.

At Sloghan, about two hundred versts from Brezc the frontier town of Poland, we sold our kibitka for a breakfast, and took the _char de poste_, or regular troika. This is the postboy's favourite vehicle; the body being made of twigs interlaced like a long basket, without a particle of iron, and so light that a man can lift up either end with one hand. Our speed was increased wonderfully by the change; the horses fairly played with the little car at their heels; the drivers vied with each other, and several posts in succession we made nearly twenty versts in an hour. It will probably be difficult to throw the charm of romance around the troika driver; but he comes from the flower of the peasantry; his life, pa.s.sed on the wild highways, is not without its vicissitudes, and he is made the hero of the Russian's favourite popular ballads:

"Away, away, along the road The gallant troika bounds; While 'neath the douga, sadly sweet, Their Valdai bell resounds."[2]

We pa.s.sed the house of a _very respectable_ seigneur who had married his own sister. We stopped at his village and talked of him with the postmaster, by whom he was considered a model of the domestic virtues.

The same day we pa.s.sed the chateau of a n.o.bleman who wrote himself cousin to the Emperors of Russia and Austria, confiscated for the part he took in the late Polish revolution, a melancholy-looking object, deserted and falling to ruins, its owner wandering in exile with a price upon his head. It rained hard during the day, for the first time since we left Petersburgh; at night the rain ceased, but the sky was still overcast. For a long distance, and, in fact, a great part of the way from Petersburgh, the road was bordered with trees. At eleven o'clock we stopped at a wretched posthouse, boiled water, and refreshed ourselves with deep potations of hot tea. We mounted our troika, the postillion shouted, and set off on a run. Heavy clouds were hanging in the sky; it was so dark that we could not see the horses, and there was some little danger of a breakdown; but there was a high and wild excitement in hurrying swiftly through the darkness on a run, hearing the quick tinkling of the bell and the regular fall of the horses' hoofs, and seeing only the dark outline of the trees. We continued this way all night, and toward morning we were rattling on a full gallop through the streets of Brezc. We drove into a large stable-yard filled with kibitkas, troikas, and all kinds of Russian vehicles, at one end of which was a long low building kept by a Jew. We dismounted, and so ended nearly three thousand miles of posting in Russia. The Jew, roused by our noise, was already at the door with a lighted taper in his hand, and gave us a room with a leather-covered sofa and a leather cus.h.i.+on for a pillow, where we slept till eleven o'clock the next day.

We breakfasted, and in the midst of a violent rain crossed the Bug, and entered the territory of Poland Proper. For many centuries the banks of the Bug have been the battle-ground of the Russians and Poles. In the time of Boleslaus the Terrible, the Russians were defeated there with great slaughter, and the river was so stained with blood that it has retained ever since the name of the _Horrid_. Before crossing we were obliged to exchange our Russian money for Polish, rubles for florins, losing, of course, heavily by the operation, besides being subjected to the bore of studying a new currency; and the moment we planted our feet on the conquered territory, though now nominally under the same government, we were obliged to submit to a most vexatious process. The custom-house stood at the end of the bridge, and, as matter of course, our postillion stopped there. Our luggage was taken off the wagon, carried inside, every article taken out and laid on the floor, and a Russian soldier stood over, comparing them with a list of prohibited articles as long as my arm. Fortunately for me, the Russian government had not prohibited travellers from wearing pantaloons and s.h.i.+rts in Poland, though it came near faring hard with a morning-gown. My companion, however, suffered terribly; his wearing apparel was all laid out on one side, while a large collection of curious and pretty nothings, which he had got together with great affection at the capital, as memorials for his friends at home, were laid out separately, boxes opened, papers unrolled, and, with provoking deliberation, examined according to the list of prohibited things. It was a new and despotic regulation unknown to him, and he looked on in agony, every condemned article being just the one above all others which he would have saved; and when they had finished, a large pile was retained for the examination of another officer, to be sent on to Warsaw in case of their being allowed to pa.s.s at all. I had frequently regretted having allowed the trouble and inconvenience to prevent my picking up curiosities; but when I saw the treasures of my friend taken from him, or, at least, detained for an uncertain time, I congratulated myself upon my good fortune. My friend was a man not easily disheartened; he had even got over the loss of his love at St. Petersburgh; but he would rather have been turned adrift in Poland without his pantaloons than be stripped of his precious bawbles. I had seen him roused several times on the road, quarrelling with postmasters and thumping postillions, but I had never before seen the full development of that extraordinary head of hair. He ground his teeth and cursed the whole Russian nation, from the Emperor Nicolas down to the soldier at the custom-house. He was ripe for revolution, and, if a new standard of rebellion had been set up in Poland, he would have hurried to range himself under its folds. I soothed him by striking the key-note of his heart. All the way from Petersburgh he had sat mechanically, with his pocket-gla.s.s and brush, dressing his mustaches; but his heart was not in the work, until, as we approached the borders of Poland, he began to recover from his Petersburgh affair, and to talk of the beauty of the Polish women. I turned him to this now.

It is a fact that, while for ages a deadly hatred has existed between the Russians and the Poles, and while the Russians are at this day lording it over the Poles with the most arbitrary insolence and tyranny, beauty still a.s.serts its lawful supremacy, and the Polish women bring to their feet the conquerors of their fathers, and husbands, and brothers.

The first posthouse at which we stopped confirmed all that my companion had said; for the postmaster's daughter was brilliantly beautiful, particularly in the melting wildness of a dark eye, indicating an Asiatic or Tartar origin; and her gentle influence was exerted in soothing the savage humour of my friend, for she sympathized in his misfortunes, and the more sincerely when she heard of the combs, and rings, and slippers, and other pretty little ornaments for sisters and female friends at home; and my Pole could not resist the sympathy of a pretty woman.

We had scarcely left the postmaster's daughter, on the threshold of Poland, almost throwing a romance about the Polish women, before I saw the most degrading spectacle I ever beheld in Europe, or even in the barbarous countries of the East. Forty or fifty women were at work in the fields, and a large, well-dressed man, with a pipe in his mouth and a long stick in his hand, was walking among them as overseer. In our country the most common labouring man would revolt at the idea of his wife or daughter working in the open fields. I had seen it, however, in gallant France and beautiful Italy; but I never saw, even in the barbarous countries of the East, so degrading a spectacle as this; and I could have borne it almost anywhere better than in chivalric Poland.

We were now in the territory called Poland Proper, that is, in that part which, after the other provinces had been wrested away and attached to the dominions of the colossal powers around, until the revolution and conquest of 1830 had retained the cherished name of the kingdom of Poland. The whole road is Macadamized, smooth and level as a floor, from the banks of the Bug to Warsaw; the posthouses and postmasters are much better, and posting is better regulated, though more expensive. The road lay through that rich agricultural district which had for ages made Poland celebrated as the granary of Europe; and though the face of the country was perfectly flat, and the scenery tame and uninteresting, the soil was rich, and, at that time, in many places teeming with heavy crops. As yet, it had not recovered from the desolating effects of the war of the revolution. The whole road has been a battle-ground, over which the Poles had chased the Russians to the frontier, and been driven back to Warsaw; time after time it had been drenched with Russian and Polish blood, the houses and villages sacked and burned, and their blackened ruins still c.u.mbered the ground, nursing in the conquered but unsubdued Pole his deep, undying hatred of the Russians.

On this road Diebitsch, the crosser of the Balkan, at the head of eighty thousand men, advanced to Warsaw. His right and left wings manoeuvred to join him at Siedler, the princ.i.p.al town, through which we pa.s.sed. We changed horses three times, and rolled on all night without stopping. In the morning my companion pointed out an old oak, where a distinguished colonel of the revolution, drawing up the fourth Polish regiment against the Imperial Guards, with a feeling of mortal hate commanded them to throw away their primings, and charge with the bayonet, "Coeur a coeur."

In another place five hundred gentlemen, dressed in black, with pumps, silk stockings, and small swords, in a perfect wantonness of pleasure at fighting with the Russians, and, as they said, in the same spirit with which they would go to a ball, threw themselves upon a body of the guards, and, after the most desperate fighting, were cut to pieces to a man. Farther on, a little off from the road, on the borders of the field of Grokow, was a large mound covered with black crosses, thrown up over the graves of the Poles who had fallen there. About eleven o'clock we approached the banks of the Vistula. We pa.s.sed the suburbs of Praga, the last battle-ground of Kosciusko, where the bloodstained Suwarrow butchered in cold blood thirty thousand Poles. Warsaw lay spread out on the opposite bank of the river, the heroic but fallen capital of Poland, the city of brave men and beautiful women; of Stanislaus, and Sobieski, and Poniatowsky, and Kosciusko, and, I will not withhold it, possessing in my eyes, a romantic interest from its a.s.sociations with the hero of my schoolboy days, Thaddeus of Warsaw. On the right is the chateau of the old Kings of Poland, now occupied by a Russian viceroy, with the banner of Russia waving over its walls. We rode over the bridge and entered the city. Martial music was sounding, and Russian soldiers, Cossacks, and Circa.s.sians were filing through its streets. We held up to let them pa.s.s, and they moved like the keepers of a conquered city, with bent brows and stern faces, while the citizens looked at them in gloomy silence. We drove up to the Hotel de Leipsic (which, however, I do not recommend), where I took a bath and a doctor.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] The douga is the bow over the neck of the middle horse, to which the bell is attached; and Valdai the place on the Moscow road where the best bells are made.

CHAPTER XI.

Warsaw.--A Polish Doctor.--Battle of Grokow.--The Outbreak.--The fatal Issue.--Present Condition of Poland.--Polish Exiles.--Aspect of Warsaw.--Traits of the Poles.

A LETTER dated at Warsaw to my friends at home begins thus: "I have reached this place to be put on my back by a Polish doctor. How long he will keep me here I do not know. He promises to set me going again in a week; and, as he has plenty of patients without keeping me down, I have great confidence in him. Besides, having weathered a Greek, an Armenian, and a Russian, I think I shall be too much for a Pole." There was not a servant in the house who understood any language I spoke, and my friend kindly proposed my taking a room with him; and, as he had many acquaintances in Warsaw, who thronged to see him, he had to tell them all the history of the American in the bed in one corner. All the next day I lay in the room alone on a low bedstead, looking up at the ceiling and counting the cracks in the wall. I was saved from a fit of the blues by falling into a pa.s.sion, and throwing my boots at the servant because he could not understand me. Late in the evening my friend returned from the theatre with three or four companions, and we made a night of it, I taking medicine and they smoking pipes. They were all excellent fellows, and, as soon as they heard me moving, came over to me, and, when I fell back on my pillow, covered me up, and went back, and talked till I wanted them again. Toward daylight I fell asleep, and, when the doctor came in the morning, felt myself a new man. My doctor, by-the-way, was not a Pole, but a German, physician to the court, and the first in Warsaw; he occupied a little country-seat a few miles from Warsaw, belonging to Count Niemcewicz, the poet and patriot, who accompanied Kosciusko to this country, and married a lady of New-Jersey; returned with him to Poland, was with him on his last battle-field, and almost cut to pieces by his side.

In the afternoon one of my companions of the night before came to see me. He had been in Warsaw during the revolution, and talked with enthusiasm of their brief but gallant struggle; and, as it was a beautiful afternoon, proposed strolling to a little eminence near at hand, commanding a view of the first battle-ground. I went with him and he pointed out on the other side of the Vistula the field of Grokow.

Below it was the bridge over which General Romarino carried his little army during the night, having covered the bridge, the horses' hoofs, and the wheels of the carriages with straw. This general is now in France under sentence of death, with a price set upon his head.

The battle of Grokow, the greatest in Europe since that of Waterloo, was fought on the twenty-fifth of February, 1831, and the place where I stood commanded a view of the whole ground. The Russian army was under the command of Diebitsch, and consisted of one hundred and forty-two thousand infantry, forty thousand cavalry, and three hundred and twelve pieces of cannon. This enormous force was arranged in two lines of combatants, and a third of reserve. Its left wing, between Wavre and the marshes of the Vistula, consisted of four divisions of infantry of forty-seven thousand men, three of cavalry of ten thousand five hundred, and one hundred and eight pieces of cannon; the right consisted of three and a half divisions of infantry of thirty-one thousand men, four divisions of cavalry of fifteen thousand seven hundred and fifty men, and fifty-two pieces of cannon. Upon the borders of the great forest opposite the Forest of Elders, conspicuous from where I stood, was placed the reserve, commanded by the Grand-duke Constantine. Against this immense army the Poles opposed less than fifty thousand men and a hundred pieces of cannon, under the command of General Skrzynecki.

At break of day the whole force of the Russian right wing, with a terrible fire of fifty pieces of artillery and columns of infantry, charged the Polish left with the determination of carrying it by a single and overpowering effort. The Poles, with six thousand five hundred men and twelve pieces of artillery, not yielding a foot of ground, and knowing they could hope for no succour, resisted this attack for several hours, until the Russians slackened their fire. About ten o'clock the plain was suddenly covered with the Russian forces issuing from the cover of the forest, seeming one undivided ma.s.s of troops. Two hundred pieces of cannon, posted on a single line, commenced a fire which made the earth tremble, and was more terrible than the oldest officers, many of whom had fought at Marengo and Austerlitz, had ever beheld. The Russians now made an attack upon the right wing; but foiled in this as upon the left, Diebitsch directed the strength of his army against the Forest of Elders, hoping to divide the Poles into two parts.

One hundred and twenty pieces of cannon were brought to bear on this one point, and fifty battalions, incessantly pushed to the attack, kept up a scene of ma.s.sacre unheard of in the annals of war. A Polish officer who was in the battle told me that the small streams which intersected the forest were so choked with dead that the infantry marched directly over their bodies. The heroic Poles, with twelve battalions, for four hours defended the forest against the tremendous attack. Nine times they were driven out, and nine times, by a series of admirably-executed manoeuvres, they repulsed the Russians with immense loss. Batteries, now concentrated in one point, were in a moment hurried to another, and the artillery advanced to the charge like cavalry, sometimes within a hundred feet of the enemy's columns, and there opened a murderous fire of grape.

At three o'clock the generals, many of whom were wounded, and most of whom had their horses shot under them, and fought on foot at the head of their divisions, resolved upon a retrograde movement, so as to draw the Russians on the open plain. Diebitsch, supposing it to be a flight, looked over to the city and exclaimed, "Well, then, it appears that, after this b.l.o.o.d.y day, I shall take tea in the Belvidere Palace." The Russian troops debouched from the forest. A cloud of Russian cavalry, with several regiments of heavy cuira.s.siers at their head, advanced to the attack. Colonel Pientka, who had kept up an unremitting fire from his battery for five hours, seated with perfect sang-froid upon a disabled piece of cannon, remained to give another effective fire, then left at full gallop a post which he had so long occupied under the terrible fire of the enemy's artillery. This rapid movement of his battery animated the Russian forces. The cavalry advanced on a trot upon the line of a battery of rockets. A terrible discharge was poured into their ranks, and the horses, galled to madness by the flakes of fire, became wholly ungovernable, and broke away, spreading disorder in every direction; the whole body swept helplessly along the fire of the Polish infantry, and in a few minutes was so completely annihilated that, of a regiment of cuira.s.siers who bore inscribed on their helmets the "Invincibles," not a man escaped. The wreck of the routed cavalry, pursued by the lancers, carried along in its flight the columns of infantry; a general retreat commenced, and the cry of "Poland for ever"

reached the walls of Warsaw to cheer the hearts of its anxious inhabitants. So terrible was the fire of that day, that in the Polish army there was not a single general or staff officer who had not his horse killed or wounded under him; two thirds of the officers, and, perhaps, of the soldiers, had their clothes pierced with b.a.l.l.s, and more than a tenth part of the army were wounded. Thirty thousand Russians and ten thousand Poles were left on the field of battle; rank upon rank lay prostrate on the earth, and the Forest of Elders was so strewed with bodies that it received from that day the name of the "Forest of the Dead." The Czar heard with dismay, and all Europe with astonishment, that the crosser of the Balkan had been foiled under the walls of Warsaw.

All day, my companion said, the cannonading was terrible. Crowds of citizens, of both s.e.xes and all ages, were a.s.sembled on the spot where we stood, earnestly watching the progress of the battle, sharing in all its vicissitudes, in the highest state of excitement as the clearing up of the columns of smoke showed when the Russians or the Poles had fled; and he described the entry of the remnant of the Polish army into Warsaw as sublime and terrible; their hair and faces were begrimed with powder and blood; their armour shattered and broken, and all, even dying men, were singing patriotic songs; and when the fourth regiment, among whom was a brother of my companion, and who had particularly distinguished themselves in the battle, crossed the bridge and filed slowly through the streets, their lances s.h.i.+vered against the cuira.s.ses of the guards, their helmets broken, their faces black and spotted with blood, some erect, some tottering, and some barely able to sustain themselves in the saddle, above the stern chorus of patriotic songs rose the distracted cries of mothers, wives, daughters, and lovers, seeking among this broken band for forms dearer than life, many of whom were then sleeping on the battle-field. My companion told me that he was then a lad of seventeen, and had begged with tears to be allowed to accompany his brother; but his widowed mother extorted from him a promise that he would not attempt it. All day he had stood with his mother on the very spot where we did, his hand in hers, which she grasped convulsively, as every peal of cannon seemed the knell of her son; and when the lancers pa.s.sed, she sprang from his side as she recognised in the drooping figure of an officer, with his spear broken in his hand, the figure of her gallant boy. He was then reeling in his saddle, his eye was glazed and vacant, and he died that night in their arms.

The tyranny of the Grand-duke Constantine, the imperial viceroy, added to the hatred of the Russians, which is the birthright of every Pole, induced the unhappy revolution of eighteen hundred and thirty. Although, on the death of Alexander, Constantine waived in favour of his brother Nicolas his claim to the throne of Russia, his rule in Poland shows that it was not from any aversion to the exercise of power.

When Constantine was appointed its commander-in-chief, the Polish army ranked with the bravest in Europe. The Polish legions under Dombrowski and Poniatowski had kept alive the recollections of the military glory of their fallen nation. Almost annihilated by the b.l.o.o.d.y battles in Italy, where they met their old enemies under Suwarrow, the butcher of Praga, the proud remnants reorganized and formed the fifth corps of the "grande armee," distinguished themselves at Smolensk, Borodino, Kalouga, and the pa.s.sage of the Berezina, took the field with the wreck of the army in Saxony, fought at Dresden and Leipsic, and, when Napoleon told them, brave as they were, that they were free to go home if they pleased, they scorned to desert him in his waning fortunes, and accompanied him to Paris. Alexander promised an amnesty, and they marched with him to Warsaw. Within the first six months many officers of this army had been grossly insulted; an eyewitness told me that he had seen, on the great square of Warsaw, the high sheriff tear off the epaulettes from the shoulders of an officer, and, in the presence of the whole troops, strike him on the cheek with his hand.

It would, perhaps, be unjust to enumerate, as I heard them, the many causes of oppression that roused to revolt the slumbering spirit of the Poles; in the midst of which the French revolution threw all Poland into commotion. The three days of July were hailed with rapture by every patriotic heart; the new revolutionary movements in Belgium cheered them on; and eighty young men, torn from the altars while praying for the souls of their murdered countrymen on the anniversary of the butchery at Praga, thrilled every heart and hurried the hour of retribution. The enthusiasm of youth struck the first blow. A band of ardent young men of the first families attended the meetings of secret patriotic a.s.sociations; and six of them, belonging to the military school, suspecting they were betrayed, early in the evening went to their barracks, and proposed to their comrades a plan for liberating their country. The whole corps, not excepting one sick in bed, amounting in all to about a hundred and fifty, took up arms, and, under a lieutenant of nineteen, attacked the palace of Constantine, and almost secured his person. The grand-duke was then asleep on a couch in a room opening upon a corridor of the Belvidere Palace, and, roused by a faithful valet, had barely time to throw a robe over him and fly. The insurgents, with cries of vengeance, rushed into the interior of the palace, driving before them the chief of the city police and the aiddecamp of the grand-duke. The latter had the presence of mind to close the door of the grand-duke's apartment before he was pierced through with a dozen bayonets. The wife of the grand-duke, the beautiful and interesting princess for whom he had sacrificed a crown, hearing the struggle, was found on her knees offering up prayers to Heaven for the safety of her husband. Constantine escaped by a window; and the young soldiers, foiled in their attempt, marched into the city, and, pa.s.sing the barracks of the Russian guards, daringly fired a volley to give notice of their coming. Entering the city, they broke open the prisons and liberated the state prisoners, burst into the theatres, crying out, "Women, home; men, to arms," forced the a.r.s.enal, and in two hours forty thousand men were under arms. Very soon the fourth Polish regiment joined them; and before midnight the remainder of the Polish troops in Warsaw, declaring that their children were too deeply implicated to be abandoned, espoused the popular cause. Some excesses were committed; and General Stanislaus Potocki, distinguished in the revolution of Kosciusko, for hesitating was killed, exclaiming with his last breath that it was dreadful to die by the hands of his countrymen.

Chlopicki, the comrade of Kosciusko, was proclaimed dictator by an immense mult.i.tude in the Champ de Mars. For some time the inhabitants of Warsaw were in a delirium; the members of the patriotic a.s.sociation, and citizens of all cla.s.ses, a.s.sembled every day, carrying arms, and with gla.s.ses in their hands, in the saloon of the theatre and at a celebrated coffee-house, discussing politics and singing patriotic songs. In the theatres the least allusion brought down thunders of applause, and at the end of the piece heralds appeared on the stage waving the banners of the dismembered provinces. In the pit they sang in chorus national hymns; the boxes answered them; and sometimes the spectators finished by scaling the stage and dancing the Mazurka and the Cracoviak.

The fatal issue of this revolution is well known. The Polish nation exerted and exhausted its utmost strength, and the whole force of the colossal empire was brought against it, and, in spite of prodigies of valour, crushed it. The moment, the only moment when gallant, chivalric, and heroic Poland could have been saved and restored to its rank among nations, was suffered to pa.s.s by, and no one came to her aid. The minister of France threw out the bold boast that a hundred thousand men stood ready to march to her a.s.sistance; but France and all Europe looked on and saw her fall. Her expiring diet ordered a levy in ma.s.s, and made a last appeal, "In the name of G.o.d; in the name of liberty; of a nation placed between life and death; in the name of kings and heroes who have fought for religion and humanity; in the name of future generations; in the name of justice and the deliverance of Europe;" but her dying appeal was unheard. Her last battle was under the walls of Warsaw; and then she would not have fallen, but even in Poland there were traitors. The governor of Warsaw blasted the laurels won in the early battles of the revolution by the blackest treason. He ordered General Romarino to withdraw eight thousand soldiers and chase the Russians beyond the frontier at Brezc. While he was gone the Russians pressed Warsaw; he could have returned in time to save it, but was stopped with directions not to advance until farther orders. In the mean time Warsaw fell, with the curse of every Pole upon the head of its governor. The traitor now lives ingloriously in Russia, disgraced and despised, while the young lieutenant is in unhappy but not unhonoured exile in Siberia.

So ended the last heroic struggle of Poland. It is dreadful to think so, but it is greatly to be feared that Poland is blotted for ever from the list of nations. Indeed, by a late imperial ukase, Poland is expunged from the map of Europe; her old and n.o.ble families are murdered, imprisoned, or in exile; her own language is excluded from the offices of government, and even from the public schools; her national character destroyed; her national dress proscribed; her national colours trampled under foot; her national banner, the white eagle of Poland, is in the dust. Warsaw is abandoned, and become a Russian city; her best citizens are wandering in exile in foreign lands, while Cossack and Circa.s.sian soldiers are filing through her streets, and the banner of Russia is waving over her walls.

Perhaps it is not relevant, but I cannot help saying that there is no exaggeration in the stories which reach us at our own doors of the misfortunes and sufferings of Polish exiles. I have met them wandering in many different countries, and particularly I remember one at Cairo.

He had fought during the whole Polish revolution, and made his escape when Warsaw fell. He was a man of about thirty-five years of age, dressed in a worn military frockcoat, and carrying himself with a manly and martial air. He had left a wife and two children at Warsaw. At Constantinople he had written to the emperor requesting permission to return, and even promising never again to take up arms against Russia, but had received for answer that the amnesty was over and the day of grace was past; and the unfortunate Pole was then wandering about the world like a cavalier of fortune or a knight of romance, with nothing to depend upon but his sword. He had offered his services to the sultan and to the Pacha of Egypt; he was then poor, and, with the bearing of a gentleman and the pride of a soldier, was literally begging his bread. I could sympathize in the misfortunes of an exiled Pole, and felt that his distress must indeed be great, that he who had perilled life and ties dearer than life in the cause of an oppressed country, should offer his untarnished sword to the greatest despot that ever lived.

The general appearance of Warsaw is imposing. It stands on a hill of considerable elevation on the left bank of the Vistula; the Zamech or Chateau of the Kings of Poland spreads its wings midway between the river and the summit of the hill, and churches and towering spires checker at different heights the distant horizon. Most of the houses are built of stone, or brick stuccoed; they are numbered in one continued series throughout the city, beginning from the royal palace (occupied by Paskiewitch), which is numbered _one_, and rising above number five thousand. The churches are numerous and magnificent; the palaces, public buildings, and many of the mansions of n.o.blemen, are on a large scale, very showy, and, in general, striking for their architectural designs. One great street runs irregularly through the whole city, of which Miodowa, or Honey-street, and the Novoy Swiat, or New World, are the princ.i.p.al and most modern portions. As in all aristocratic cities, the streets are badly paved, and have no trottoirs for the foot pa.s.sengers. The Russian drosky is in common use; the public carriages are like those in Western Europe, though of a low form; the linings generally painted red; the horses large and handsome, with large collars of red or green, covered with small bra.s.s rings, which sound like tinkling bells; and the carts are like those in our own city, only longer and lower, and more like our brewer's dray. The hotels are numerous, generally kept in some of the old palaces, and at the entrance of each stands a large porter, with a c.o.c.ked hat and silver-headed cane, to show travellers to their apartments and receive the names of visiters. There are two princ.i.p.al kukiernia, something like the French cafes, where many of the Varsovians breakfast and lounge in the mornings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Royal Palace at Warsaw.]

The Poles, in their features, looks, customs, and manners, resemble Asiatics rather than Europeans; and they are, no doubt, descended from Tartar ancestors. Though belonging to the Sclavonic race, which occupies nearly the whole extent of the vast plains of Western Europe, they have advanced more than the others from the rude and barbarous state which characterizes this race; and this is particularly manifest at Warsaw. An eyewitness, describing the appearance of the Polish deputies at Paris sent to announce the election of Henry of Anjou as successor of Sigismund, says, "It is impossible to describe the general astonishment when we saw these amba.s.sadors in long robes, fur caps, sabres, arrows, and quivers; but our admiration was excessive when we saw the sumptuousness of their equipages; the scabbards of their swords adorned with jewels; their bridles, saddles, and horse-cloths decked in the same way," &c.

But none of this barbaric display is now seen in the streets of Warsaw.

Indeed, immediately on entering it I was struck with the European aspect of things. It seemed almost, though not quite, like a city of Western Europe, which may, perhaps, be ascribed, in a great measure, to the entire absence of the semi-Asiatic costumes so prevalent in all the cities of Russia, and even at St. Petersburgh; and the only thing I remarked peculiar in the dress of the inhabitants was the remnant of a barbarous taste for show, exhibiting itself in large breastpins, s.h.i.+rt-b.u.t.tons, and gold chains over the vest; the mustache is universally worn. During the war of the revolution immediately succeeding our own, Warsaw stood the heaviest brunt; and when Kosciusko fell fighting before it, its population was reduced to seventy five thousand. Since that time it has increased, and is supposed now to be one hundred and forty thousand, thirty thousand of whom are Jews.

Calamity after calamity has befallen Warsaw; still its appearance is that of a gay city. Society consists altogether of two distinct and distant orders, the n.o.bles and the peasantry, without any intermediate degrees. I except, of course, the Jews, who form a large item in her population, and whose long beards, thin and anxious faces, and piercing eyes met me at every corner of Warsaw. The peasants are in the lowest stage of mental degradation. The n.o.bles, who are more numerous than in any other country in Europe, have always, in the eyes of the public, formed the people of Poland. They are brave, prompt, frank, hospitable, and gay, and have long been called the French of the North, being French in their habits, fond of amus.e.m.e.nts, and living in the open air, like the lounger in the Palais Royal, the Tuileries, the Boulevards, and Luxembourgh, and particularly French in their political feelings, the surges of a revolution in Paris being always felt at Warsaw. They regard the Germans with mingled contempt and aversion, calling them "dumb" in contrast with their own fluency and loquacity; and before their fall were called by their neighbours the "proud Poles." They consider it the deepest disgrace to practise any profession, even law or medicine, and, in case of utmost necessity, prefer the plough. A Sicilian, a fellow-pa.s.senger from Palermo to Naples, who one moment was groaning in the agony of seasickness and the next playing on his violin, said to me, "Canta il, signore?" "Do you sing?" I answered "No;" and he continued, "Suonate?" "Do you play?" I again answered "No;" and he asked me, with great simplicity, "Cosa fatte? Niente?" "What do you do? Nothing?" and I might have addressed the same question to every Pole in Warsaw.

The whole business of the country is in the hands of the Jews, and all the useful and mechanical arts are practised by strangers. I did not find a Pole in a single shop in Warsaw; the proprietors of the hotels and coffee-houses are strangers, princ.i.p.ally Germans; my tailor was a German; my shoemaker a Frenchman, and the man who put a new crystal in my watch an Italian from Milan. But though this entire absence of all useful employment is, on grounds of public policy, a blot on their national character, as a matter of feeling it rather added to the interest with which I regarded the "proud Poles;" and perhaps it was imaginary, but I felt all the time I was in Warsaw that, though the shops and coffee-houses were open, and crowds thronged the streets, a sombre air hung over the whole city; and if for a moment this impression left me, a company of Cossacks, with their wild music, moving to another station, or a single Russian officer riding by in a drosky, wrapped in his military cloak, reminded me that the foot of a conqueror was upon the necks of the inhabitants of Warsaw. This was my feeling after a long summer day's stroll through the streets; and in the evening I went to the theatre, which was a neat building, well filled, and brilliantly lighted; but the idea of a pervading and gloomy spirit so haunted me that in a few moments I left what seemed a heartless mockery of pleasure. I ought to add that I did not understand a word of the piece; the _triste_ air which touched me may have been induced by the misfortunes of the stage hero; and, in all probability, I should have astonished a melancholy-looking neighbour if, acting under my interpretation of his visage, I had expressed to him my sympathy in the sufferings of his country.

CHAPTER XII.

Religion of Poland.--Sunday in Warsaw.--Baptized Jews.--Palaces of the Polish Kings.--Sobieski.--Field of Vola.--Wreck of a Warrior.--The Poles in America.--A Polish Lady.--Troubles of a Pa.s.sport.--Departure from Warsaw.--An official Rachel.--A mysterious Visiter.

SUNDAY at WARSHAW. Poland is distinguished above the other nations of Europe as a land of religious toleration. So late as the latter part of the tenth century, the religion of Poland was a gross idolatry; and, mingled with the rites of their own country, they wors.h.i.+pped, under other names, Jupiter, Pluto, Mars, Venus, Diana, and others of the pagan deities. During the reign of Mieczylaus I. of the Piast dynasty, the monks introduced Christianity. The prince himself was proof against the monks, but received from woman's lips the principles of the Christian religion. Enamoured of Dombrowska, the daughter of the Duke of Bohemia, a country which had then lately embraced Christianity, who refused to accept his suit unless he was baptized, Mieczylaus sacrificed the superst.i.tions and prejudices of his fathers on the altar of love. But the religion which he embraced for the sake of Dombrowska he afterward propagated for its own; became an ardent champion of the cross; broke down with his own hands the idols of his country; built Christian churches on the ruins of pagan temples; and, in the ardour of his new faith, issued an edict that, when any portion of the Gospel was read, the hearers should half draw their swords to testify their readiness to defend its truth.