400,000 florins, and fled secretly with his aide-decamp, and his troops followed in the night of the 1st of June. On the next day Zaïonczek and his corps entered Warsaw.

The emperor of Russia had engaged at the interview of Erfurth, in 1808, to act in conjunction with France, but had been very tardy in executing his promise; now however that victory declared against the Austrians in Austria as well as Poland, he ordered 48,000 men into Gallicia, who however merely followed in the wake of Poniatowski. The enemy retreated and evacuated Gallicia on all points.

The duchy of Warsaw appointed a government for the occupied country, but orders came from Napoleon to establish a provisional government in his name, which was done, and allegiance sworn to the emperor. On the 15th of July Poniatowski entered Cracow, and on the 16th was published the armistice which Austria had entered into with Napoleon, after the battle of Wagram on the 6th of July; an envoy was sent to Napoleon to acquaint him with the events of the campaign, and Poniatowski was complimented with a sword, and a cross of the Legion of Honour.

The treaty of peace was signed at Vienna on the 14th of October. The Poles were again deceived by Napoleon; only four departments of the conquest, Cracow, Radom, Lublin, and Siedlce, were added to the duchy of Warsaw, while the circles of Tarnopol and Zbazaz were ceded to Russia. The salt mines

of Wieliczka were to be in common between Austria

and the duchy.

This accession of territory to the duchy was, however, of very beneficial effect to the Polish cause, and more perhaps in its tendency than its immediate consequence. It was an earnest to the Poles of future advancement, and they flattered themselves that, as the duchy of Warsaw was gradually extending, it would at length attain the complete growth of the ancient kingdom of Poland.

CHAPTER XIII.

State of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1812.-Napoleon's designs; treaty with Austria.-Alexander's treatment of the Lithuanians.-Russian Invasion.- Napoleon enters Wilna. -Napoleon's Answer to the Poles.-Confederacy.-Burning of Moscow and retreat of the French.-Wilna and Warsaw entered by the Russians.-Prince Poniatowski retires to Cracow ; joins Buonaparte in Saxony; is drowned at Leipzig.-Polish Legions follow Napoleon to France.-The Allies enter Paris. - Kosciusko's Letter to Alexander.Alexander's Answer.-Dombrowski and the Polish Legion return to Warsaw.-Congress of Vienna.-The Kingdom of Poland annexed to Russia.-New Constitution.-- Lithuania, Posnania, Gallicia, and Cracow.-Diet of 1818.—Infringements of the Constitution.-Death of Alexander.— Nicholas. Poles involved in the Russian Conspiracy; acquitted.-Nicholas crowned at Warsaw in 1829.-Infringements of the Constitution.-Prospects of Poland.

THE year 1812 was destined to form another important era in the annals of the Poles. A small fraction indeed of the Polish population were restored to their rights, but the liberty thus obtained was not the substantial and invaluable blessing for which they had fought and bled so many years; their grand duke was a mere vassal of Napoleon, and the dependence of the duchy on France was unavoidable, since it was too limited, and its resources too contracted, to enable it to defend itself.

It was, at this time, in the most lamentable state of

wretchedness. "Nothing", says M. de Pradt*, "could exceed the misery of all classes. The army was not paid; the officers were in rags; the best houses were in ruins; the greatest lords were compelled to leave Warsaw, from the want of money to provide their tables." The Poles flattered themselves, however, that the grand scale of their military establishment, so disproportionate to the present magnitude of the duchy, was a proof that Napoleon did not intend to confine his exertions to what had already been effected, but meant the duchy only as a nucleus for future increments.

The Poles fancied also that their hopes were about to be realized, when Buonaparte threatened Russia with the invasion of 1812. He took every precaution to impress them with the belief, that it was his design to restore the kingdom of Poland to its former state, and Montalivet, his minister for the home department, having let fall some hints in public, that such a plan had never fallen into his views, he commissioned Marshal Duroc to remove the bad impression thus caused, by making the strongest assurances of Napoleon's interest in the Poles, and persuading them that the remark had been made only to blind the Russians.

Napoleon's determination was by no means formed with respect to Poland; on one occasion he inad

*

Napoleon's ambassador at Warsaw.-See Histoire de l'Ambassade en Pologne.

vertently exposed the insincerity of his promises, by owning that his conduct to that country was "merely a whim." It is certain that he could have had no objection to see the kingdom of Poland reestablished, since it would have formed a strong barrier against Russia; but he did not wish to render the rupture between himself and Alexander irremediable, as he would have done by openly wresting Lithuania from him. His desire was, that all the movements of Poland might seem to proceed from herself. With regard to the Austrian share of that kingdom, he had made up his mind, in case of the reestablishment of Poland, that it should be restored for an indemnification. On the 14th of March, 1812, he concluded a treaty with the court of Vienna, and some of the secret articles were concerning this business. Napoleon guaranteed the possession of Gallicia to Austria, even if the kingdom of Poland were reestablished; but in that case, "if it suited the views of the Emperor of Austria to cede Gallicia in exchange for some Illyrian provinces, the arrangement was to take place."

The conduct of the Emperor Alexander to the Lithuanians was calculated to make them weigh Napoleon's promises and designs with suspicious precision before they credited them. They were not now as they once were, happy to catch at the most distant gleam of hope, when no misfortune could have much aggravated their misery; but they had something to lose by failure, some degree of happiness at stake. The good policy of Alexander tended