ught
together old enemies. "I am not going to have the Russians for
neighbors," the Empress Maria Theresa was always repeating. The
devastating flood had to be directed, and at the same time stemmed. The
feeble goodwill of France and the small body of troops commanded by
Dumouriez were still supporting the Polish insurrection, but the Duke of
Choiseul had just succumbed to intrigue at home. There was no longer any
foreign policy in France. It was without fear of intervention from her
that the German powers began to discuss between them the partition of
Poland.

She was at the same time suffering disseverment at her own hands through
her intestine divisions and the mutual jealousy of her chiefs. In Warsaw
the confederates had attempted to carry off King Stanislaus Augustus,
whom they accused of betraying the cause of the fatherland; they had
declared the throne vacant, and took upon themselves to found an
hereditary monarchy. To this supreme honor every great lord aspired,
every small army-corps acted individually and without concert with the
neighboring leaders. Only a detachment of French, under the orders of
Brigadier Choisi, still defended the fort of Cracow; General Suwarrow,
who was investing it, forced them to capitulate; they obtained all the
honors of war, but in vain was the Empress Catherine urged by D'Alembert
and his friends the philosophers to restore their freedom to the glorious
vanquished; she replied to them with pleasantries. Ere long the fate of
Poland was about to be decided without the impotent efforts of France in
her favor weighing for an instant in the balance. The political
annihilation of Louis XV. in Europe had been completed by the dismissal
of the Duke of Choiseul.

The public conscience is lightened by lights which ability, even when
triumphant, can never altogether obscure. The Great Frederick and the
Empress Catherine have to answer before history for the crime of the
partition of Poland, which they made acceptable to the timorous jealousy
of Maria Theresa and to the youthful ambition of her son. As prudent as
he was audacious, Frederick had been for a long time paving the way for
the dismemberment of the country he had seemed to protect. Negotiations
for peace with the Turks became the pretext for war-indemnities. Poland,
vanquished, divided, had to pay the whole of them. "I shall not enter
upon the portion that Russia marks out for herself," wrote Frederick to
Count Sol