ance worthy of better success. He found the Poles
debased by misery, slavery, and the custom of bearing a foreign yoke. He
found the Polish aristocrats corrupted by luxury, enervated by
pleasures, employing in intrigues and language the warmth of their
patriotism in the conferences and confederation of _Eperies_. A female
of remarkable beauty, high rank, and eastern genius, the Countess of
Mnizeck, stirred up, destroyed, or combined different parties, according
to the taste of her ambition or her amours. Certain patriot orators
caused the last accents of independence to resound again in vain.
Certain princes and gentlemen formed meetings without any understanding
with each other, who contended as partisans rather than as citizens, and
who boasted of personal fame, without any reference to the safety of
their country. Dumouriez availed himself of the ascendency of the
countess, and endeavoured to unite these isolated effects, formed an
infantry, an artillery, seized upon two fortresses, threatened in all
directions the Russians, scattered in small bodies over the wide plains
of Poland, prepared for war, disciplined the insubordinate patriotism of
the insurgents, and contended successfully against Souwarow, the Russian
general, subsequently destined to threaten the republic so closely.

But Stanislaus, the king of Poland, the crowned creature of Catherine,
saw the danger of a national insurrection, which, by drawing out the
Russians, would endanger his throne; and he paralysed it by offering to
the federates to adhere, in his own person, to the confederation. One of
them, Bohuez, the last great orator of Polish liberty, returned to the
king, in a sublime oration, his perfidious succour, and then combined
the unanimity of the conspirators into the last resource of the
oppressed--insurrection. It burst forth. Dumouriez is its life and soul,
flies from one camp to the other, giving a spirit of unity to the plan
of attack. Cracovis was ready to fall into his hands; the Russians
regain the frontier in disorder; but anarchy, that fatal genius of
Poland, suddenly dissolves the union of the chiefs, and they surrender
one another to the united efforts of the Russians. All desire to have
the exclusive honour of delivering their country, and prefer to lose it
rather than owe their success to a rival.

Sapieha, the principal leader, was massacred by his nobles. Pulauwski
and Micksenski were delivered up, wounded, to the Russians; Zar