culture of the enslaved
earth.

You meet upon the high roads processions of men and women carrying
the standard of the cross, and singing Psalms; a profound expression
of melancholy reigns upon their countenance: I have seen them, when
not money, but food of a better sort than they had been accustomed
to was given them, turn up their eyes to heaven with astonishment,
as if they considered themselves unfit to enjoy its bounty. The
custom of the common people in Poland is to embrace the knees of the
nobility when they meet them; you cannot stir a step in a village
without having the women, children, and old men saluting you in this
manner. In the midst of this spectacle of wretchedness you might see
some men in shabby attire, who were spies upon misery: for that was
the only object which could offer itself to their eyes. The captains
of the circles refused passports to the Polish noblemen, for fear
they should see one another, or lest they should go to Warsaw. They
obliged these noblemen to appear before them every eight days, in
order to certify their presence. The Austrians thus proclaimed in
all manner of ways that they knew they were detested in Poland, and
they separated their troops into two equal divisions: the first
entrusted with supporting externally the interests of Poland, and
the second employed in the interior to prevent the Poles from aiding
the same cause. I do not believe that any country was ever more
wretchedly governed than Gallicia was at that time, at least under
political considerations; and it was apparently to conceal this
spectacle from general observation that so many difficulties were
made in allowing a stranger to reside in, or even to pass through
the country.

I return to the manner in which the Austrian police behaved to me to
hasten my journey. In this road it is necessary to have your
passport examined by each captain of a circle; and every third post
you found one of the chief towns of the circle. They had put up
placards in the police offices of all these towns that a strict eye
must be kept on me as I passed through. If it was not for the
singular impertinence of treating a female in this manner, and that
a female who had been persecuted for doing justice to Germany, one
could not help laughing at the excess of stupidity which could
publish in capital letters measures of police, the whole strength of
which consists in their secrecy. It reminded me of M. de Sartines,
who had former