tia, Witepsk, Polotsk, Mohilef,
Volhynia, the Ukraine, Podolia, be animated by the same spirit which I
have witnessed in the Greater Poland; and Providence will crown your
good cause with success. I will recompense that devotion of your
provinces which renders you so interesting, and has acquired you so many
claims to my esteem and protection, by every means that can, under the
circumstances, depend upon me."

The Poles had imagined that they were addressing the sovereign arbiter
of the world, whose every word was a law, and whom no political
compromise was capable of arresting. They were unable to comprehend the
cause of the circumspection of this reply. They began to doubt the
intentions of Napoleon; the zeal of some was cooled; the lukewarmness of
others confirmed; all were intimidated. Even those around him asked each
other what could be the motives of a prudence which appeared so
unseasonable, and with him so unusual. "What, then, was the object of
this war? Was he afraid of Austria? Had the retreat of the Russians
disconcerted him? Did he doubt his good fortune, or was he unwilling to
contract, in the face of Europe, engagements which he was not sure of
being able to fulfil?

"Had the coldness of the Lithuanians infected him? or rather, did he
dread the explosion of a patriotism which he might not be able to
master? Was he still undecided as to the destiny he should bestow upon
them?"

Whatever were his motives, it was obviously his wish that the
Lithuanians should appear to liberate themselves; but as, at the same
time, he created a government for them, and gave a direction to their
public feeling, that circumstance placed him, as well as them, in a
false position, wherein every thing terminated in errors,
contradictions, and half measures. There was no reciprocal understanding
between the parties; a mutual distrust was the result. The Poles desired
some positive guarantees in return for the many sacrifices they were
called upon to make. But their union in a single kingdom not having been
pronounced, the alarm which is common at the moment of great decisions
increased, and the confidence which they had just lost in him, they also
lost in themselves. It was then that he nominated seven Lithuanians to
the task of composing the new government. This choice was unlucky in
some points; it displeased the jealous pride of an aristocracy at all
times difficult to satisfy.

The four Lithuanian provinces of Wilna, Mins