My own private conjecture, I confess, has rather grown to be, on much reading of those RULHIERES and distracted Books, that the Czarina,--who was a grandiose creature, with considerable magnanimities, natural and acquired; with many ostentations, some really great qualities and talents; in effect, a kind of She-Louis Quatorze (if the reader will reflect on that Royal Gentleman, and put him into petticoats in Russia, and change his improper females for improper males),--that the Czarina, very clearly resolute to keep Poland hers, had determined with herself to do something very handsome in regard to Poland; and to gain glory, both with the enlightened Philosophe classes and with her own proud heart, by her treatment of that intricate matter. "On the one hand," thinks she, or let us fancy she thinks, "here is Poland; a Country fallen bedrid amid Anarchies, curable or incurable; much tormented with religious intolerance at this time, hateful to the philosophic mind; a hateful fanaticism growing upon it for forty years past [though it is quite against Polish Law]; and the cries of oppressed Dissidents [Dissenters, chiefly of the Protestant and of the Greek persuasion] becoming more and more distressing to hear. And, on the other hand, here is Poniatowski who, who--!"Readers have not forgotten the handsome, otherwise extremely paltry, young Polack, Stanislaus Poniatowski, whom Excellency Williams took with him 8 or 9 years ago, ostensibly as "Secretary of Legation," unostensibly as something very different?
Handsome Stanislaus did duly become Lover of the Grand-Duchess;and has duly, in the course of Nature, some time ago (date uncertain to me), become discarded Lover; the question rising, What is to be done with that elegant inane creature, and his vaporous sentimentalisms and sublime sorrows and disappointments? "Let us make him King of Poland!" said the Czarina, who was always much the gentleman with her discarded Lovers (more so, I should say, than Louis Quatorze with his;--and indeed it is computed they cost her in direct moneys about twenty millions sterling,--being numerous and greedy; but never the least tiff of scolding or ill language):
[Castera ( Vie de Catharine II. ) has an elaborate Appendix on this part of his subject.]--"King of Poland, with furnishings, and set him handsomely up in the world! We will close the Dissident Business for him, cure many a curable Anarchy of Poland, to the satisfaction of Voltaire and all leading spirits of mankind. He shall have outfit of Russian troops, poor creature;and be able to put down Anarchies, and show himself a useful and grateful Viceroy for us there. Outfit of 10,000 troops, a wise Russian Manager: and the Question of the Dissidents to be settled as the first glory of his reign!"Ingenuous readers are invited to try, in their diffuse vague RULHIERES, and unintelligible shrieky Polish Histories, whether this notion does not rise on them as a possible human explanation, more credible than the feline-diabolic one, which needs withal such a foreknowledge, UNattainable by cat or devil? Poland must not rise to be too strong a Country, and turn its back on Russia. No, truly;nor, except by miraculous suspension of the Laws of Nature, is there danger of that. But neither need Poland lie utterly lame and prostrate, useless to Russia; and be tortured on its sick-bed with Dissident Questions and Anarchies, curable by a strong Sovereign, of whom much is expected by Voltaire and the leading spirits of mankind.
What we shall have to say with perfect certainty, and what alone concerns us in our own affair, is, FIRST, that Catharine did proceed by this method, of crowning, fitting out and otherwise setting up Stanislaus; did attempt settlement (and at one time thought she had settled) the Dissident Question and some curable Anarchies,--but stirred up such legions of incurable, waxing on her hands, day after day, year after year, as were abundantly provoking and astonishing:--and that within the next eight years she had arrived, with Poland and her cargo of anarchies, at results which struck the whole world dumb. Dumb with astonishment, for some time;and then into tempests of vociferation more or less delirious, which have never yet quite ended, though sinking gradually to lower and lower stages of human vocality. Fact FIRST is abundantly manifest. Nor is fact SECOND any longer doubtful, That King Friedrich, in regard to all this, till a real crisis elsewhere had risen, took little or no visible interest whatever; had one unvarying course of conduct, that of punctually following Czarish Majesty in every respect; instructing his Minister at Warsaw always to second and reinforce the Russian one, as his one rule of policy in that Country,--whose distracted procedures, imbecilities and anarchies, are, beyond this point of keeping well with a grandiose Czarina concerned in it, of no apparent practical interest to Prussia or its King.
Friedrich, for a long time, passed with the Public for contriver of the Catastrophe of Poland,--"felonious mortal," "monster of maleficence," and what not, in consequence. Rulhiere, whose notion of him is none of the friendliest nor correctest, acquits him of this atrocity; declares him, till the very end, mainly or altogether passive in it. Which I think is a little more than the truth,--and only a little, as perhaps may appear by and by.
Beyond dispute, these Polish events did at last grow interesting enough to Prussia and its King;--and it will be our task, sufficient in this place, to extricate and riddle out what few of these had any cardinal or notable quality, and put them down (dated, if possible, and in intelligible form), as pertinent to throwing light on this distressing matter, with careful exclusion of the immense mass which can throw only darkness.
EX-LOVER PONIATOWSKI BECOMES KING OF POLAND (7th Sept. 1764), AND IS CROWNED WITHOUT LOSS OF HIS HAIR.
