LIBRARY OP CALIFORNIA SAN PETERSBURG AND WARSAW: SCENES WITNESSED DUKING A RESIDENCE IN POLAND AND RUSSIA IN 1863-4. BY AUGUSTIN P. O'BRIEN. LONDON: EICHAKD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, IJttbiisIjer m rbinarg to P 1864. LONDON; PRINTED BY R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT AND THE POLES . 1 CHAPTER II. PRINCE WITTGENSTEIN'S LETTER 20 CHAPTER III. WILNA 33 CHAPTER IV. GENERAL MOURAVIEFF 36 CHAPTER V. PRISON-HOSPITALS 39 CHAPTER VI. WOUNDED INSURGENTS . , 46 iv Contents. CHAPTER VII. PAGE POLITICAL PRISONEKS ............ 51 CHAPTER VIII. POLITICAL ASSASSINS ............ 61 CHAPTER IX. COURTS-MARTIAL .............. 66 CHAPTER X. PEASANT-DEPUTATIONS ............ 72 CHAPTER XI. WERKEY ............... 76 CHAPTER THE HOUSE OF RADZOVILL .......... 80 CHAPTER XIIL THE BISONS ........... ... 83 CHAPTER XIV. MEMORIES OF 1812 ............ 86 CHAPTER XV. BAD OMENS .......... 89 Contents. v CHAPTER XVI. PAGE NAPOLEON'S WRITING-TABLE 91 CHAPTER XVII. FLIGHT FROM WILNA 97 CHAPTER XVm. REPENTANT INSURGENTS 102 CHAPTER XIX. STATE OF LITHUANIA 108 CHAPTER XX. WARSAW 117 CHAPTER XXI. THE CONSUL GENERAL 128 CHAPTER XXn. COUNT DE BERG 134 CHAPTER XXm. THE SPIRIT OF THE PRESS 139 CHAPTER XXIV. THE GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE . .. * ', .... 141 vi Contents, CHAPTER XXV. PAGE THE GRAND DUCHESS 145 CHAPTER XXVL ASSASSINATION AND THE CATHOLIC CHUECH 148 CHAPTER XXVIL A SOIREE AT THE VICEREGAL COURT 150 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CITADEL OP WARSAW 155 . CHAPTER XXIX. THE PRISON DIET 159 CHAPTER XXX. FEMALE PRISONERS 160 CHAPTER XXXI. THE MALE PRISONERS 164 CHAPTER XXXII. TORTURE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS 166 CHAPTER XXXIII. ATTEMPT TO MURDER COUNT DE BERG .... . 169 Contents. vii CHAPTER XXXIV. PAGE THE PANIC 172 CHAPTER XXXV. THE MONASTERIES 176 CHAPTER XXXVI. THE CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD AND THE POIGNARD .... 181 CHAPTER XXXVII. GENERAL TREPOIT 185 CHAPTER XXXVIII. A MOTHER'S PRAYERS 191 CHAPTER XXXIX. THE CARBONARI 195 CHAPTER XL. SENTENCED TO DEATH 201 CHAPTER XLI. TORTURE AT WARSAW 204 CHAPTER XLII. MANIFESTO OF THE -NATIONAL GOVERNMENT . . 210 viii Contents. CHAPTER XLIIL PACK THE PRESS 214 CHAPTER XLIV. FOREIGN JOURNALS 221 CHAPTER XLV. POLAND AND ITALY 227 CHAPTER XLVI. ACTUAL STATE OF POLAND . . . 232 PETERSBURG AND WARSAW, CHAPTER I. THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT AND THE POLES. AMONGST the discontented nationalities of Europe, none has excited more sympathy than Poland, though it must, at the same time, be confessed that none has received less active support. Without going back to the original partition of the country amongst the three great European Powers that now hold it; without referring to that anterior period when the seeds of dissension sown in the nature of the monarchy, were perpetually bringing forth their prickly produce; without pausing to discuss that dream of a revived Poland enter- tained by the Czar Alexander I., I shall content myself with speaking of the Poland of the 2 Petersburg and Warsaw. present day, and of how far she has been aided or injured by her sympathizers. If verbal sympathy could have healed the wounds or redressed the wrongs of Sarmatia, enough was said and written in England alone in the beginning of the present century to accom- plish the work. But Poland's land-bound position, which cuts her off from any material aid that her insular sympathizers might be inclined to give her, prevents them in like manner from testing the truth of accounts they receive, and which are more frequently prepared in accordance with the preconceived notions of those by whom they are intended to be read, than with a regard to truth. This remark does not apply to gentlemen of the press, nor to English gentlemen travelling through Poland, who, touched by tales of oppression related to them, take up their pens, and, filled with virtuous indignation, make the English people acquainted with tales of horror, which the narrators firmly believe, but whose origin may be traced to the interested framers of such reports. And 'The English Government and the Poles. 3 this spirit of exaggeration is a characteristic that distinguishes the late disturbances in Poland, from all previous outbursts of national feeling in that country. It is not that the Poles have become aliens to truth, or that they wish the rest of Europe to believe their position to be other than it is. On the con- trary, great as is the sympathy felt for the Poles in England, I can confidently aver that they deserve still more commiseration than they excite. And the grounds for this com- miseration are that they have been doubly deceived. They have been deceived by those foreign emissaries under whose influence this outburst of feeling has been excited; and they have been deceived by the hopes -well- grounded as they thought of foreign aid. If the true history of the late insurrection in Poland were thoroughly understood in England, public opinion would soon undergo a very great change. Not that sympathy for Poland would become less, but indignation would be directed against those who, to serve their own ends, trafficked in the patriotism of B2 4 Petersburg and Warsaw. the Poles, and caused a profitless expenditure of blood. The spirit of anarchy unchained by the French Revolution, and so often mistaken for the spirit of freedom which at the same epoch rose from a long slumber, has since then num- bered her worshippers and her martyrs by thousands throughout Europe. Anarchy so often assumes the garb and name, and takes the tone of freedom, that the blinded multi- tude to whom a well-cooked feast is offered, does not perceive that the voice of Jacob is combined with the hand of Esau. Freedom ! Liberty ! These, like many other of the best gifts accorded to man, have been trafficked in, and some of the noblest instincts from nature made instrumental to the darkest crimes. These truths have been brought vividly before my eyes during my late residence in Warsaw. I went to that city filled with what I am inclined to call a hereditary English indignation against oppression, and I found but I must confess it was long before I dis- covered the truth that the Poles had been 'The English Government and the Poles. 5 misled; that their patriotic sentiments had been made a matter of traffic ; that they had fallen into the hands of men, revolutionists by profession, who undertook to organize a revo- lution in Poland. The Poles discovered their mistake, but too late: thev could not draw w back, for the machinery of the National Government was by that time in full opera- tion, and the gendarmes pendeurs were always ready for their work. Nothing can be more unfortunate than the position of Poland. I would wish to speak loudly and energetically on the subject. The English people at this moment misjudge the conduct of their own government as much as they misunderstand the position of the Poles. A full and public discussion of the question would reveal truths as astonishing to the well- meaning English public as they were to me and to some few others who learned the facts on the scene of action. The cosmopolitan revolutionists, whose head- quarters are at London and Paris, having done a considerable share of work in Italy, and 6 Petersburg and Warsaw. having tickled a few of the minor nationali- ties of Europe, turned their eyes to Poland. Here they found materials ready to their use. With the Poles, patriotism is their strength and their weakness. There is no sacrifice that a patriot Pole is not ready to make for his country ; there is no folly, no act of rashness, which he may not be induced to commit, if presented to him shadowed over with the veil of patriotism. The revolution-makers knew this, and found little difficulty in exciting fer- mentation in the elements present in Polish society ; and the Poles, blinded by the vapours rising from their own quickly -heated imagina- tions, did not see, could not divine, the motives of their advisers. They were dazzled by the prospect of a thoroughly-organized revolution, ramifying itself into France and England, whence the roots should be supplied with nutriment. It was not to be wondered at, that many Polish noblemen and landowners were seduced; it was not to be wondered at, that old hopes, old visions, should again revive. These gentlemen believed that the The English Government and the Poles, 7 emissaries of the revolutionists spoke the sentiments of England and France. The prospect was unfortunately too alluring. The Polish nobility, who are for the most part very rich, gave large sums of money freely, and the revolution-makers, thus supplied with what they most needed, set to work. These men understood perfectly well how to perform the task they had undertaken. The experience they had had in other countries, they utilized in Poland. They established what they called the National Government, an institution so effectually hidden from the eyes of the un- initiated, that it may be deemed a myth, were it not that its decrees were executed with fatal punctuality. But the most power- ful weapon in the hands of the revolution- makers was the institution of the national gendarmerie, now known as the "hanging gendarmerie." This was a secret police, of wonderfully perfect organization, distributed over the country, in bands varying in number from two and three to twenty and thirty, according to the wants of the locality in 8 Petersburg and Warsaw. which they were stationed. These men were for the most part foreigners; those amongst them who were Poles were the lowest of society, such as are to be found in every country; men who from their boyhood up- wards have seldom had a stationary home, except when in a public prison ; men familiar with crime, and who can be easily induced to " do murder for a meed." These elements were compounded into a "national gendar- merie," and trained to assume every species of disguise, they went about the streets in cities armed with concealed poignards, with which as they passed a " marked man " they stabbed him. In the commencement of the revolution, it was almost impossible to detect these assassins, their disguise was so complete, and they chose their time so well. They com- menced their work in the early dusk, before the streets were quite deserted, so that they could profit by the double advantages offered by the presence of the passengers and the advancing obscurity. This system of stabbing in the streets is English Government and the Poles. 9 one of the most hideous treasons against humanity that assassination ever invented. It was done so quietly ; the victim fell, and when the passers-by ran to his assistance, they found him dying, or perhaps already dead, of a stab in the heart. As the practice of this crime spread, the terror of the inhabi- tants in the different cities became intense. No mother who blessed her son as he left her house in the morning, could reckon upon ever seeing him alive again. No wife who embraced her husband as he left his home, could be sure that before night his murdered corpse might not be laid at her feet. I must premise that before things had reached this height in the cities, many of the Polish noblemen and landowners who had, at first, abetted the revolution, had discovered their mistake. They found that they had placed themselves in the hands of men who were revolution-makers by profession, that a wonderfully well -devised system of terror had been brought into operation, and that instead of becoming necessary to what they had hoped io Petersburg and Warsaw. would be the regeneration of their country, they found themselves instruments in the hands of men who recognised no law but the dagger or the gallows. Remonstrance was vain, they could not free themselves from the clasp of the spectre they had raised, and nothing remained for them but to retire to their homes, and, with barricaded doors and windows, try to defend themselv.es from the incursions of these national gendarmerie, who went about extorting contributions for defray- ing the expenses of the revolution. Refusal to comply with these demands was attended with the risk of assassination. When the secret of the Polish revolution was discovered, when numbers of the anti-Russian Poles perceived that they had been deceived, that they had unwittingly sold themselves to a secret society, which as Kossuth expressed it, saura se faire obeir, they would most willingly have retired from the trap into which they had fallen, but the issue was barred with poignards. The exactions of the soi-disant National Government were exorbitant. There The English Government and the Poles. 1 1 is scarcely a landed proprietor in the country whose revenue has not become embarrassed by the sums he has been obliged to pay to the revolutionists. I have seen nobles and large landed proprietors living in hourly terror of assassination, barricaded in their own houses, dreading the entrance of the " hang- ing gendarmerie," to whose presence in the country they might have been themselves in- strumental, but who now kept them in per- petual terror. I saw a very sad instance of the effects produced by this terrorism. I visited Count Colonthai at his residence in Warsaw, where, with his family and his father-in-law, he had retired some months before. When the Count saw the revolution in its true light, he was desirous of immediately leaving the country with his wife, his property being so circum- stanced, that he could do so without loss. But it was otherwise with his father-in-law. He could not leave Poland at so short a notice without great pecuniary loss. His son-in-law consented to remain. In the house where I 1 2 Petersburg and Warsaw. saw them they lived barricaded, and as in a state of siege. It had been so for months. The ladies of the family looked pale and anxious ; I saw them sit at the dinner-table without tasting food, and the lady of the house told me that but in compliment to her guests she would not have appeared at all. Her anticipations of evil were founded upon what she had already suffered and seen others suffer. Her old father had not been able to resist the effects that the hourly dread of assassination wrought upon his mind. His reason wandered. It was one amongst the many calamities occasioned by the national gendarmerie. The National Government organized this gendarmerie in the first instance, for the pur- pose of intimidating the peasantry and those inhabitants of the towns who were not inclined to revolt ; for, I am sorry to be compelled to say, that the worst enemy that the Polish peasant ever knew was his Polish landlord. When we speak of the " patriotic" Poles, those who have at any time risen against their The English Government and the Poles. 13 foreign rulers, we must remember that these " patriots " were all nobles and landowners ; there were no peasants in these patriot bands. I say it with a feeling of shame, because of my hereditary admiration for the Poles, but truth compels me to repeat that in Poland little sympathy exists between tenant and land-owner. Consequently, the peasantry had no interest in revolutions, and it was to intimidate that class that the national gen- darmerie were first organized. It was on the peasantry that these bands of hired assas- sins, these off-scourings of every country in Europe, first practised their barbarities ; and when the Polish nobles, they who had abetted . this revolution, discovered the great error they had committed, and wished to retrace their steps, they, in turn, became obnoxious to the power they had themselves raised up in the land, and were made to suffer in loss of pro- perty, and too frequently in loss of life. The plotters and framers of this revolution were men who understood perfectly well the work they had in hand, and in no instance 14 Petersburg and Warsaw. did they show their skill more than in their successful efforts to mislead the European press. I speak especially with reference to the press of France and England, those countries where sympathy for the Poles has been most strongly felt. "Our Correspon- dents" on both sides of the Channel were loud in their outcry against the enemies of the Poles, but unfortunately they did not at first know have they yet learned ? who were the worst enemies of the Poles during the late insurrection. There is not, perhaps, a man in England who was not deceived as to the character and origin of the late insurrection in Poland. The British Government were deceived, and when they at first so warmly interfered in the affairs of Poland, it was because they were then under the impression that the movement in Poland was a national one. Lord Napier, the English Ambassador at St. Petersburg, first discovered through reliable sources that the British ministers had been misinformed, and that the well-contrived and terribly executed 'The English Government and the Poles. 1 5 revolution was not the work of the Poles, except in so far as they had been instru- ments in the hands of cosmopolitan revolu- tionists. It was very much to the honour of the British Government that they hastened to ex- postulate with Russia upon her treatment of the Poles. It was a generous impulse be- coming the Government of a free people, and one for which the Polish nobility will always feel grateful, but none know better than the noble Poles themselves how much falsehood was in the reports circulated with regard to the late insurrection. When the British mini- sters learned the facts of the case, and saw that they had been misled, they felt that their interference had been misplaced. They were striding with a war pace towards a nation whose exact relations with her dependencies at that moment they did not understand. They retraced their steps, and, for this move- ment, which not alone policy but honesty would have dictated, they are loudly blamed by some. Nor were the British ministers 1 6 Petersburg and Warsaw. ignorant of what little dependence could be placed upon one of England's principal allies, who, it was then discovered, had some months before attempted secret negotiations with Russia, inimical to the policy and interests of this country. It behoved the ministers to act with caution and promptitude, and they did so. This is the history of the October despatch, about which some persons think- there is so much mystery. An undelivered despatch cannot be considered a parliamentary docu- ment, but were the disputed despatch made public, it would only serve to convince the English people that the ministry having acted generously in the first instance, acted pru- dently in the second. What would the feel- ings of the English people be, if, pursuing a well-intentioned but mistaken policy, the Government had drifted them into war with Russia ? What would they say if, at the end of some months, after money and human life had been uselessly squandered, we should only then learn the truth, and discover that we had not been fighting in the cause of op- The English Government and the Poles. 1 7 pressed Poland, but for the benefit of the cos- mopolitan revolutionists ? As much has been said about this recalled despatch, as if it were an event unexampled in the annals of diplo- macy, but diplomatists on both sides of the House know that such is not the case, and were the ministerial benches to become filled by gentlemen opposed in politics to those who now sit there, and should political combina- tions, exactly similar to those now under dis- cussion, arise, there can be no doubt but that the new occupants of the ministerial benches, actuated by a sense of duty to the country, would behave in precisely the same way as that in which the present ministry have acted. Another circumstance connected with the Polish insurrection, which the English people could scarcely divine, is that the getters-up of that insurrection did the Czar of Russia service of grave importance. The Czar had emancipated the serfs, and by so doing had wounded the prejudices of a large and power- ful party in Russia men who did not wish to c 1 8 Petersburg and Warsaw. see the old system of things changed. It will be remembered that the year before last, con- flagrations broke out in different parts of Russia, and a great deal of property was destroyed. These fires were supposed to be expressions of hostility directed against the Czar and his advisers. The Russians, though they regard the Czar with feelings little short of worship, were not all quite pleased with his proceedings towards the serfs. The revo- lution-makers profited by these symptoms of discontent in Russia, to hasten their negotia- tions with the Poles. The insurrection broke out. The two greatest nations in Europe openly expressed sympathy for the Poles, and the remonstrances addressed by their govern- ments to the Czar sounded threateningly. The patriotism of the fanatical Russians rose to a terrible pitch. Their Czar was insulted, their country threatened. They declared themselves ready to die for both. Not since the commence- ment of the Crimean war had the Muscovite nation been so electrified. It was not the Czar, it was not Prince Gortschakoff, who would have 'The English Government and the Pot.es. 1 9 replied to a hostile despatch it was sixty millions of combined and angry Russians. A rupture between England and Russia would not serve the cause of Poland, but it would help to carry out the designs of the re volution -makers, who have done the Poles such heavy detriment. It would exactly coin- cide with the object contemplated by the organizers of the " hanging gendarmerie." During a visit I made in the district of Wlodslawek, of which Prince Emile de Sayn Wittgenstein is governor, I asked the Prince to give me a sketch of his experience during the insurrection, and to say what he thought of the organization of the " National Gendar- merie." The Prince wrote me a long letter on the subject. His account agreed with the information I had already received and with my own experience. As the Prince speaks very freely both of the " hanging gendarmerie " and of his own exertions in suppressing them, I subjoin his letter. c2 2O Petersburg and Warsaw. CHAPTER II. PRENCE WITTGENSTEIN'S LETTER. "THE institution of the national gendarmes, which the people, with their characteristic felicitousness of expression, have denominated * the hanging gendarmes/ was originally de- signed for the purpose of obtaining by force and by systematic terrorism, what the revolu- tionary party in Poland had not been able to obtain either by patriotic speeches or by promises, or even by the powerful influence of the clergy, that is to say, the voluntary co-operation of the agricultural classes and the richest of the bourgeoisie in the Insurrection of 1863. "The first acts of cruelty on the part of these national gendarmerie took place, as well as I Prince Wittgenstein's Letter. 11 can remember, about the end of May and the beginning of June. Drawn without exception from the dregs of the populace of the towns, recruited amongst liberated malefactors and vagabonds of every kind, that the revolution has let loose upon this unfortunate country, the ' National Gendarmerie ' rose suddenly and simultaneously all over the country, and inaugurated their advent by hangings en masse, which for a time had the effect of completely suspending the co-operation we were beginning to receive from the peasantry, and which ulti- mately contributed more than all the repressive measures of the Government to recall the great mass of the population to a correct view of the state of the country, and made them apprehend a future of inevitable ruin and car- nage, should Poland be abandoned to the rule of a party that employed such auxiliaries ; in a word, the proceedings of the hanging gen- darmerie effected a powerful reaction in favour of order and of the established Government, a reaction which still operates in all classes of society and in all parts of the kingdom. 22 Petersburg and Warsaw. "Established in detachments of three or four in every village, and upon every large estate, these Thugs of modern civilization spread like a net-work over the whole country, obeying district officers, who in turn obeyed the com- mands of provincial chiefs, who received their orders direct from Warsaw. " The mission of these men was to collect by threats of assassination the levies called national taxes, to point out the recalcitrant peasants and oblige them by force to join the revolutionary bands, and, as I have said, by incessant cruelty, by accumulated assassinations, to compel that co-operation which terror alone could procure them. Concealing themselves by day and doing their work of terror by night, they often acted as guides to bodies of troops sent to track them ; and the very peasants that they oppressed, hid them or protected their flight, knowing that if they did otherwise the gallows and flaming villages would follow quickly the slightest suspicion of connivance with the Rus- sian Government. It has often happened that words dropped from the lips of a child, of a Prince Wittgenstein's Letter. 23 drunken person, or a village gossip, that the delay in the execution of an order, a passing rumour, a refusal to go to the forest, or like trifling causes, have sufficed to bring ruin and death on entire families. A delay in sending provisions or the means of transport that had been demanded, a want of money to pay these contributions, denominated ' voluntary/ was invariably followed by cruel retaliations, most frequently by death ; and if the person threatened succeeded in eluding his execu- tioners, his family were obliged to pay his debt to ' the vengeance of his country/ "It was under such circumstances that a patrouitte that T sent into the neighbourhood of Wincenti, in the government of Angustowo, found a family hanged because the father, who had refused to join a revolutionary band, had taken flight. The members of this family who were hanged consisted of the man's wife and his five children, the youngest between two and three years of age. " In a military excursion that I made through the same government in the month of July, I 24 Petersburg and Warsaw. met at Rajgroed an old half-pay Russian offi- cer, Captain Nitschaeff, who had lived in that town a great many years, and who had become suspected by the district commander of the * National Gendarmerie,' and against whom sentence of death was recorded. Warned in time by his friends he escaped. The execu- tioners not finding him seized his wife, the mother of four children ; and s the unhappy man appealed to me to assist him in his search for her. Two days later I received a report from the military commander of the district of Angustowo, saying that the body of Madame Nitschaeff had been found hanging on a tree in the forest of Lipsk. Her eyes had been plucked out, and her tongue and breasts cut off. " An elderly lady, owner of an estate in the neighbourhood of Sopockin, received about the same time 100 lashes, because she had not prepared at the appointed time a number of vehicles required by a certain band of revolu- tionists. " It was after this fashion that the apostles of the national Polish cause preached to the Prince Wittgenstein's Letter. 25 masses of the population the emancipation and regeneration of their country. " But this is not all. There were bands like that of Bonsza, for example, in the government of Plock, that traversed the country, hanging at random in every village through which they passed one or more peasants, merely to keep up a feeling of terror in some, and to secure the silence and co-operation of others. This Bonsza, I must observe, was originally a ser- vant, and was dismissed his employment for theft. He commenced his political career by hanging his master. The peasantry became so depressed, so brutified, by these continual threats of death, tiiat they at length sunk into dejection, allowing themselves to be slaugh- tered like sheep. " The following circumstance occurred whilst I was at Suwalki. In a large village, of more than a hundred families, situate, if I remember correctly, in the neighbourhood of Segny, a national gendarme appeared one day. He was armed with two revolvers. He assembled all the inhabitants in the open air, and made 26 Petersburg and Warsaw. them a long speech, reproaching them with their want of patriotism. He chose at random four, and hanged them in the presence of the villagers, without a man of that multitude making an effort to save them. " I shall relate you another fact that occurred fifteen days since at Gombin, the district at present under my jurisdiction ; a district in which, thank Heaven ! owing to the activity of my leaders of columns, and the good dispo- sitions of the peasantry, a like circumstance had not occurred for two months previously. A German colonist, named Bohme, who some time before had informed the authorities that one of these cut-throats was hidden in the village, received a citation, I know not under what pretext, to appear before the tribunal of the city of Gombin. Having arrived at Gom- bin he was seized in the middle of the street by three unarmed men, who rushed out of an inn, and in presence of a number of bystanders tied his hands behind his back, threw him into a cart, and drove out of the town. They made a long detour through the environs, torturing Prince Wittgenstein's Letter. 27 their prisoner the whole time in the most cruel manner. They cut away the inside of his nostrils, fleed his back, and flogged him inces- santly with whips. The victim suffered so that the imprint of his teeth was found in the wood of the blood-stained cart. Having arrived at the house of a proprietor, whom I shall not name, the executioners halted, and ordered some brandy. Whilst they were en- joying themselves their victim profited by the opportunity, and, all bleeding as he was, fled and hid in the garden. The executioners, aided by the servants of the nobleman, pursued him, whilst the daughter of the house looked on from the window. The pursuers overtook the fugitive, carried him a little further still, flogging him until he became insensible. They then flung him into a yard, where he expired of cold and pain. The torturers returned again, and in mockery hung the dead body in a Protestant cemetery a few versts beyond. " On learning these horrible details I resolved to make a terrible example, convinced that by doing so I should save the lives of many. I, 28 Petersburg and Warsaw. therefore, imposed a fine of 3,000 roubles on the city of Gombin, and ordered the house which had been the theatre of the crime to be sacked from top to bottom, leaving the owners only their personal effects. The effect of this example was, that within three days, the three assassins were delivered up by the peasants themselves, who certainly, if I had acted with less severity, would have hesitated to take such an initiative. One of these assassins was a German named Miiller. I ordered the three to be hanged at Gombin. " It is a remarkable fact with regard to the national gendarmes, whose number I must say diminishes daily, thanks to our incessant pursuit, and thanks above all to the spirit of conservation which for some time past has awaked in the peasantry and land-owners, and which stimulates them to track these cut- throats themselves, and deliver them up to justice, it is, I must say, remarkable that a third, at least, of these gendarmes are foreign- ers, for the most part Prussians. One was lately brought before me who was a Schleswiger. Prince Wittgenstein's Letter. 29 This man was caught at the very moment when he was about to hang a woman. He had come from his own country to advance the Polish propaganda by means of the patriotic cord. " This class of wretches will have soon dis- appeared, thanks to the activity with which the people join the troops in freeing the coun- try from them. Their great stronghold at present is Warsaw, whose vast rabble quickly fills the gaps made by those who 'meurent pour la patrie.' But the energy of Count de Berg, supported by that of General Trepoff, will soon suppress these. " Such are the ' martyrs' of the Polish cause whom Russian barbarity, to the great scandal of the foreign press, punishes with death. " I shall mention a few whom I have myself got hanged, and who would have deserved death in any other country, even in liberal England. I do not speak of regenerated Italy, that now incessantly pours forth upon us her civilizing phrases and her superabundance of patriotic vagabonds. She has proved iii the 3