e by a proud and infatuated nobility. They had seen their
pusillanimous kings one after another yielding to the insolent demands
for their territory. Polish territory extended eastward into the
Ukraine; now that must be cut off and dropped into the lap of Russia.
Another arm extended north, separating Eastern Prussia from Western.
That too must be cut off and fall to Prussia. Then after shearing
these extremities, the Poland which was left must not only accept the
spoliation, but co-operate with her despoilers in adopting under their
direction a constitution suited to its new humiliation. Her King was
making her the laughing-stock of Europe--but before long the name
Poland was to become another name for tragedy. Kosciusko had fought in
the War of the American Revolution. When he returned, with the badge
of the Order of the Cincinnati upon his breast and filled with dreams
of the regeneration of his own land by the magic of this new political
freedom, he was the chosen leader of the patriots.

The partition of Poland was not all accomplished at one time. It took
three repasts to finish the banquet (the partitions of 1792-1793-1794),
and then some time more was required to sweep up the fragments and to
efface its name from the map of Europe. Kosciusko and his followers
made their last vain and desperate stand in 1794, and when he fell
covered with wounds at the battle of Kaminski, Poland fell with him.
The Poles were to survive only as a more or less unhappy element among
nations where they were aliens. Their race affinities were with
Russia, for they were a Slavonic people; their religious affinities
were with Catholic Austria; but with Protestant Prussia there was not
one thing in common, and that was the bitterest servitude of all. The
Poles in Russia were to some extent autonomous. They were permitted to
continue their local governments under a viceroy appointed by the Tsar;
their Slavonic system of communes was not disturbed, nor their language
nor customs. Still it was only a privileged servitude after all, and
the time was coming when it was to become an unmitigated one. But
effaced as a political sovereignty, Poland was to survive as a
nationality of genius. Her sons were going to sing their songs in
other lands, but Mickiewiz and Sienkiewicz and Chopin are Polish, not
Russian.

The alliance of the three sovereigns engaged in this dismemberment was
about as friendly as is that of three dogs who have