ough Poland.

I arrived in the beginning of July at the chief town of the circle,
in which Lanzut is situated; my carriage stopped before the
posthouse, and my son went, as usual, to have my passport examined.
I was astonished, at the end of a quarter of an hour, not to see him
return, and I requested M. Schlegel to go and ascertain the cause of
his delay. They both came back immediately, followed by a man whose
countenance I shall never, during my life, forget: an affected
smile, upon the most stupid features, gave the most disagreeable
expression to his countenance. My son, almost beside himself,
informed me that the captain of the circle had declared to him that
I could not remain more than eight hours at Lanzut, and that to
secure my obedience to this order, one of his commissaries should
follow me to the castle, should enter into it with me, and should
not quit me until I had left it. My son had represented to this
captain, that overcome as I was with fatigue, I required more than
eight hours to repose myself, and that the sight of a commissary of
police, in my weak state, might give me a very fatal shock. To all
these representations the captain replied with a brutality which is
quite peculiar to German subalterns; nowhere also do you meet with
that obsequious respect for power which immediately succeeds to
arrogance towards the weak. The mental movements of these men
resemble the evolutions of a review day; they make a half turn to
the right, and a half turn to the left, according to the word of
command which is given to them.

The commissary intrusted with the inspection of me, fatigued himself
in bowing to the very ground, but would not in the least modify his
charge. He got into a caleche, the horses of which followed me so
close that they touched the hind wheels of my berline. The idea of
entering, escorted in this manner, into the residence of an old
friend, into a paradise of delight, where I had been feasting my
ideas by anticipation, with spending several days; this idea I say
made me so ill, that I could not get the better of it; joined to
that also was, I believe, the irritation of finding at my heels this
insolent spy, a very fit subject, certainly, to outwit, if I had had
the desire, but who did his duty with an intolerable mixture of
pedantry and rigor*: I was seized with a nervous attack in the
middle of the road, and they were obliged to lift me out of my
carriage, and lay me down on the side