Chapter IV: Part 4

♦Their hostility to his army.♦ His friendly relations with Tekeli were broken off by the rapine of the Lithuanians, who, on hearing of the spoils of which their tardiness had deprived them, had set off in haste towards the south, and were plundering Upper Hungary. The inhabitants, regarding John as responsible for these reckless freebooters, and knowing nothing of his efforts in their behalf, shut themselves up in their towns and treated him as an enemy. Though he could scarcely obtain provisions for his troops, he was loth to relinquish his design of quartering them in Hungary. But the queen had hit on a new method of preventing him, which was more effective than the murmurs of his men. She suddenly ceased to answer his letters. “For five weeks,” he complains, “I really have not known whether there is a Poland in the world.”[120]

♦Triumphal entry into Cracow.♦ He closed the campaign gloriously on the anniversary of Kotzim (November 11th), by capturing Schetzin after a few hours’ siege, and then returned home through the Carpathian Mountains. The ground was frozen so hard that the tents could not be pitched, and it was Christmas-eve before the victorious army, laden with the spoils of the East, entered Cracow in triumph. A few days later the Grand Vizier received with resignation his sentence of death from the Sultan, and ere long the head which had dreamed of the conquest of Europe was adorning the gates of the seraglio.

♦General results of the campaign.♦ The result of this grand campaign was to change the course of history. Hitherto, as at Lepanto and at St. Gothard, the Ottoman arms had never received more than a temporary check; from henceforward we find the empire of the Sultan constantly losing ground in Europe. John Sobieski had recovered in two months more than had been gained in a hundred years. The chief explanation of this decline is doubtless internal decay; but the glory of the Polish hero consists in the singleness of aim which enabled him in a moment of supreme danger to disregard old enmities, and to fly to the defence of Western Christendom, then too disunited to defend itself.

♦Advantages to Poland.♦ Poland gained more by this campaign than she was ready to confess. The Turks had for ever lost the offensive, and were so much engaged in their conflict with the Empire, that they could not think of revenging themselves upon the republic. But they still retained the fortress of Kaminiec; and until this sore was closed, the danger seemed ever present. The Cossacks however, from whom that danger had first arisen, now acknowledged the king’s authority, and falling upon the Tartars as they returned from Vienna, routed them with immense slaughter. But the renown procured by the victories of the king was more advantageous still. Venice and Muscovy besought the honour of an alliance with Poland; and she never stood higher among the nations than at this moment.

♦Campaign of 1684.♦ Civil troubles prevented John taking the field early the next year (1684).[121] In August, however, he marched into Podolia, and after taking Jaslowicz, approached the walls of Kaminiec. Since he could not hope to reduce it by blockade, his only resource was to erect a fort in the neighbourhood; and this he effected in the face of the enemy, who dared not risk a battle.

He returned to Zolkiew in November, dissatisfied with the results of the campaign. ♦Jealousy of John’s generals.♦ At its outset he had been attended by numbers of distinguished foreigners, anxious to serve under so great a prince, but he had found himself enfeebled by the lukewarm support of his two Grand Generals, Jablonowski and Sapieha. Both were jealous of his monopolising the glory by commanding in every campaign; but each of them had ulterior reasons. Jablonowski was the chief of the faction of Louis XIV., who was straining every nerve to gain over Poland; Sapieha dreamed of separating Lithuania from Poland, and becoming sovereign of the Grand Duchy. In the ensuing Diet the faction of each had its complaints against the king. The former blamed him for his ill-success against Kaminiec; the latter accused him of depriving Lithuania of her rights by summoning the Diet to meet at Warsaw instead of at Grodno. The Lithuanians at first refused to attend it, but they yielded on the king’s proposal that it should be called the Diet of Grodno. Their opposition to his plans, however, was relentless, and one of the family of Paz[122] carried his abuse so far as to threaten to make him feel the weight of his arm. Such was the treatment that was reserved for the saviour of Europe at the hands of his own subjects!

♦Unsuccessful campaign of 1685.♦ His health had now become so feeble that in the next campaign (1685) he was able to gratify Jablonowski by leaving him in command. His loss was at once keenly felt. Skilful though he was, the Grand General allowed his army to be caught in a defile in the forest of Bucovina, and it required all his ability to rescue it from utter annihilation. Ashamed at his own pride no less than at his reverse he shunned the royal presence.[123]

♦Perfidy of Leopold.♦ The zeal of the king for the cause of the Emperor was cooled about this time by the marriage of the archduchess, who had been promised to Prince James, to the Elector of Bavaria. The queen[124] was impelled by her resentment to join the French party, and Leopold had too much cause to fear that she would induce John to make a separate peace. ♦Father Vota.♦ He therefore sent a Jesuit named Vota as his secret agent to the court of Warsaw. The mission of the holy father was not openly political; his journey was supposed to have been undertaken to convert the heretics of the Greek church; but the Emperor trusted that his literary and social talents would procure him an ascendancy over the king of Poland. He is described as a man of wide knowledge and wonderful powers of conversation; and his religious habits and unobtrusive demeanour preserved him from suspicion. He devoted himself to the king’s pleasure, and often slept on the floor of an ante-chamber in order to be at hand to entertain his weary hours. He easily kept him faithful to the league against the infidel, and hinted that the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia might, if subdued by his arms, become hereditary in his family. John knew well that they would merely become provinces of Poland; but he was anxious to extend her frontiers to the shores of the Black Sea. ♦The king tries to revive commerce.♦ In spite of the opposition of the nobles he wished to revive her commerce; and a mercantile treaty which he contemplated with Holland would have been assisted by the acquisition of a double sea-front.

♦Treaty with Muscovy.♦ By a treaty with Muscovy in this year (1686) he gave up Kiow and Smolensko, which had been long in her possession, for a large indemnity, and obtained promises of co-operation in his schemes of conquest. Posterity has blamed him for these concessions; but in his time such was the national contempt for the Muscovites that no danger was apprehended on their side.

♦Campaign of 1686.♦ His chances of success were excellent. The Emperor promised his aid on the side of Hungary; and a great army of Muscovites was to push forward to the Black Sea. After arranging his plans with the Imperial generals, John assembled his forces at the Dniester, but he found all alike, officers and men, indisposed to a campaign beyond the borders of Poland. But he could not now draw back. He advanced through the deserts of Moldavia to the Pruth, passing on his way the fatal spot where Zolkiewski met with a hero’s death. Descending the river he entered Yassy, the capital, on the 15th of August, and found that the hospodar had fled with his troops, but had left provisions for the invading force, thinking by this means to secure his immunity from punishment, whatever might be the result of the campaign. After two days of rest John pushed on towards the Black Sea. But the heat, the scarcity of water, and the terrible solitude[125] broke the spirit of his army, and suddenly the Tartars appeared in his front. News also arrived that the Turks were within a march of him, and there was no sign either of Muscovite or Austrian succours. Leopold had again deceived him, and had profited by John’s demonstration to capture the city of Buda. There was nothing left but to retreat, and this the king successfully accomplished, through a most difficult country, in the face of the enemy. The Tartars poisoned the rivers and springs, and set fire to the vegetation, while searching clouds of dust and ashes distressed the retiring Poles. At length they reached the frontiers of Poland; and the only person who had reaped any benefit from their sufferings was the Emperor Leopold.

♦Deposition of the Sultan.♦ In the following year a revolution at Constantinople, provoked by continued disasters, deprived Mahomet IV. of his throne; and had there been a complete accord between the members of the Christian league, the Ottoman empire might have tottered to its fall. No soldier of the Church had laboured more steadily towards this end than John Sobieski; and if it was not realised, the fault lay not with him but with his more powerful allies.

♦Polish anarchy.♦ As his reign drew near its close, the internal disorders of his kingdom increased. The Emperor never ceased to intrigue with the Lithuanian grandees against his faithful ally, and the French party opposed him for this fidelity to the league. The lesser nobility was devoted to him; but the Senate was now the hotbed of faction. All the grandees wished for the end of his reign, the French party because they disliked his policy, and the Lithuanians because they hated his person. Besides this, every ambitious senator looked to an interregnum as a means of realising his dreams of power.

♦Diet of Grodno.♦ In the Diet of Grodno in 1688 the king was assailed on all sides. The senators[126] in the pay of France clamoured for peace with the Porte; the Lithuanians, at a hint from the Emperor, accused him of personal aims in his attempt upon Moldavia. Before any subsidy could be voted the Diet was dissolved by the veto; and when the king assembled a convocation he met with the same stormy opposition. Hastily dismissing the assembly, he submitted to a period of inaction; but he had the consolation of finding, on a visit to Wilna in the same year, that even in the Grand Duchy he was regarded by the people with admiration.

♦John refuses peace with the Turks.♦ A fresh outburst from the French party occurred in the same summer, when he refused to make peace with the Sultan, although he was offered the restoration of Kaminiec. He had bound himself by oath never to make a separate peace without the consent of his allies; but to keep strictly to this article was detrimental to the republic, so sorely in need of reforms, and he had abundant excuse for breaking it in the conduct of the Emperor.

♦Tries to establish hereditary succession.♦ His scruples were not suggested by a desire for further glory, or by a blindness to the true interests of Poland. His days of warfare were past for ever. He saw only too clearly the failure of the old constitution, and he was anxious before his death to witness the establishment of hereditary monarchy. In striving to have his son declared his successor he was not actuated by merely selfish motives, for when a subject he had held the same principles.[127] But the grandees considered such a proposal as a direct infringement of their privileges; and they were encouraged by Leopold, who found it his interest to preserve Poland in a state of fermentation.

♦Affecting scene in the senate.♦ The king intended to ask this of the republic at the Diet of Grodno; but his intention becoming known, he was assailed with the utmost virulence in the senate. The Grand Treasurer termed him despot, tyrant, and destructor of the public liberty; a palatine spoke of him as the enemy of his country. At length the king rose and addressed the senate. He recalled the patriotism and services of his ancestors, and protested his devotion to the cause of liberty. But he begged his hearers to pause, and reflect on the consequences of intestine strife. “Oh, what will be one day the sad surprise of posterity to see that at the summit of our glory, when the name of Poland was filling the universe, we have allowed our country to fall in ruins, to fall, alas! for ever! For myself I have now and then gained you a few battles; but I confess myself deprived of all power to save you. It only remains for me to resign, not to destiny, for I am a Christian, but to the great and mighty God, the future of my beloved country.... I seem to hear already resounding over our heads the cry of the prophet: ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed.’ Your most illustrious Dominations know that I do not believe in auguries. I do not search out oracles; I give no credence to dreams; it is not an oracle, it is faith which teaches me that the decrees of Providence cannot fail to be accomplished.”

During this prophetic speech the voice of the old king trembled with emotion, and the senate was deeply touched. The primate knelt at the foot of the throne, and assured him of the loyalty of Poland; and a cry of assent arose from all present. The subsidies were voted by acclamation; but it was only a transient gleam of concord. ♦Continued disturbances.♦ Next year there were rumours of a conspiracy to dethrone the king; and amid the storms of the Diet a bishop named Opalinski said to him haughtily, “Be equitable, or cease to reign!” The insult was soon followed by an apology; but the tumult continued in the assembly, and sabres were freely used before the veto terminated the disgraceful scene.[128] ♦Intended abdication of Sobieski.♦ The king felt himself unable to cope with these terrible disorders, and he instructed his chancellor to prepare an act of abdication (1689); but the unfeigned sorrow of all classes persuaded him to withdraw it. There was little improvement, however, in the temper of future Diets; and the veto was employed as freely as before.

♦Discord in his family.♦ John was not more happy in his domestic than in his public life. His imperious queen was ever his evil genius. Not content with diminishing his popularity by mixing too freely in public affairs,[129] she sowed dissension round his own fireside. The king evidently designed for his successor his eldest son James; for, besides giving him a high command in the army, he allowed him to sit by his side in the senate. But the queen favoured Alexander, her second son, who was more handsome and popular[130] than his brother, and her open partiality produced a fierce hatred between the two brothers. When the Emperor, reminded of the value of John’s friendship by the victories of Mustapha Köprili, gave the Princess of Neuberg in marriage to Prince James[131] (1690), the queen took a violent dislike to her daughter-in-law; and the family breach was widened.

♦His last campaign, in 1691.♦ Next year the king took the field for the last time, nominally to chastise the Tartars for an invasion in the winter, but really perhaps to escape the miseries of his court. He took with him for the first time his son Alexander, and this so exasperated Prince James that he threatened to leave the country. The king told him that if he went he would take with him a father’s curse, and he was persuaded to repent and ask pardon for his violence. His father said openly that in the ensuing campaign he should more easily get the better of the enemy than of his own sons. He gained a victory at Pererita (August 6), and took a few places in Moldavia, and then returned to his kingdom never to leave it more.

♦His love of retirement.♦ He spent his last years in retirement, and seldom appeared in public except in the Diet. His palace of Willanow was his favourite residence, and from thence in the summer he would roam from castle to castle, sometimes pitching his tent, like his nomad forefathers, wherever a picturesque spot or a noble landscape attracted his fancy. The queen would have preferred the gaieties of Warsaw; but she followed him into his solitude, and took care that balls, operas, and the other amusements of a court should be going on around him.

♦His literary tastes.♦ His chief recreation now, as in his most difficult campaigns, was the study of the sciences. He complains to the queen, after the battle of Vienna, that with all his love of reading he has not had a book in his hand for more than three weeks.[132] When he read he always had a pencil in his hand, and his marginal notes displayed uncommon powers of mind. Dr. South--no mean judge--pronounces him to be “very opulently stored with all polite and scholastical learning.” He was fond of writing Polish poetry, and when his daughter Theresa married the Elector of Bavaria he presented her with a copy of verses on the event.[133] Like many others of the Slav race, he was an accomplished linguist. He could converse with ease in six languages, including Latin,[134] and learnt Spanish when he was past fifty. His delight was to assemble around him cultivated men like Father Vota, the French Ambassador Cardinal Polignac, and his physicians, Connor and Jonas, and to “set them very artfully by the ears”[135] on some question of philosophy or natural science.[136] Nor was theology forgotten. He used to give audiences to the schismatic bishops, and listen patiently to their arguments for their respective creeds.

♦Patron of learning.♦ Such a prince was of course an ardent patron of learning. During his reign more books issued from the Polish press than in the two centuries preceding; and his liberal views led him to reprimand the Catholic clergy for not admitting into their schools the philosophy of Descartes. ♦Spite of the nobles.♦ The great nobles, many of them wholly unlettered, could not sympathise with these literary tastes, and they showed their spite towards the king in various ways. On one occasion, when illness kept him away from the Diet, the Sapiehas demanded that he should be summoned to attend; and when their motion was lost, they broke up the assembly with the veto. A Jew named Bethsal, who collected his revenues, was condemned to death by the Diet on an unproved charge of sacrilege,[137] and John could hardly prevail to save his life. ♦Charge of covetousness unproved.♦ Many imputed his love of retirement to covetousness, and asserted that he laid up £100,000 a year for the benefit of his sons.[138] The accusation has been often repeated, although his life abounds in instances of his draining his private[139] coffers to serve a pressing public need.

The disorders of the kingdom grew more frightful as John became less able to restrain them. Street brawls between political parties had always been of common occurrence, but the rioters now began to use firearms,[140] and the king had to publish an edict prohibiting the shedding of blood on pain of death. He often sent for the chief nobles, and adjured them by the love of their country to aid him in restoring order.[141] In 1695 the Tartars, tempted by Polish anarchy and by a report of the king’s death, invaded Russia, and besieged Leopol; but they disappeared as quickly as they had come on the approach of Sobieski.

♦His feeble health.♦ Reports of his death were common in Europe, partly from his feeble health and partly from the interest which many sovereigns felt in the event.[142] He had long been afflicted with dropsy; and a wound in his head, which he had received long before in the Cossack war, now caused serious alarm.

♦Schemes of the queen.♦ The queen was most anxious that he should make his will, and she deputed her Chancellor, Bishop Zaluski, to make the proposal. The king received it with disfavour. “I am surprised,” he said, “that a man of your sense and worth should thus waste your time. Can you expect anything good of the times in which we live? Look at the inundation of vice, the contagion of folly; and should we believe in the execution of our last wishes? In life we command and are not obeyed. Would it be otherwise in death?” Soon after the queen entered, and read in the face of the bishop the failure of her plan. Zaluski tells us that the next day the king complained bitterly to him of the bodily sufferings brought on by a dose of mercury which she had given him. His frame was shaken by convulsive sobs, and he exclaimed wildly, “Will there be no one to avenge my death?” This was probably only the raving of a distempered brain; but the queen has never been exempt from suspicion, and her conduct after his death only served to confirm it.

♦His illness,♦ On the 17th of June, 1696, his seventy-second birthday,[143] he lay at Willanow in a state of dreadful weakness. He asked the news from Warsaw, and was told that multitudes were flocking to the churches to pray for his recovery. The intelligence affected him deeply, and he passed the day in cheerful conversation; but towards evening he was seized with an attack of apoplexy.[144] The chief officers hastened to his chamber, and when he awoke to a short interval of consciousness he showed how eager he was to depart by pronouncing the words “Stava bene.” ♦And death.♦ Soon afterwards, about sunset, he breathed his last, and his death, like his birth, was followed by a sudden and frightful storm.

♦Sorrow of the nation.♦ Only a few of the nobles welcomed his decease; the mass of the nation remembered his glory, and sincerely mourned his loss. The Chancellor Zaluski thus expresses the general sorrow: “With this Atlas has fallen, in my eyes at least (may I prove a false prophet!), the republic itself. We seem not so much to have lost him as to have descended with him into the tomb. At least I have but too much cause to fear that it is all over with our power. At this news the grief is universal. In the streets men accost each other with tears, and those who do not weep are yet terrified at the fate which is in store for us. Terror apart, what grief was ever more natural? He is, perhaps, the first king in whose reign not one drop of blood has been shed in reparation of his own wrongs. He had but one single fault--he was not immortal.”

♦Quarrels of his family.♦ Amidst such heartfelt sorrow the behaviour of his family alienated from them all public sympathy. Prince James at first refused to admit the queen with the royal corpse to the castle of Warsaw, and when at length he yielded, he hurried away to Zolkiew to seize his father’s treasures. The queen hastened after him to put in her claim, but he turned the cannon of that fortress against her. Burning with indignation, she exerted all her influence before she left the country[145] to destroy his chances of the crown. Such was the magic of his father’s name that at first there was a large party in his favour; but the family quarrels weakened and dispersed it. The Austrian party elected Augustus of Saxony; and the French party thought it necessary to protest by seizing the remains of the late king. The Elector, resolved not to be out-manœuvred, erected a cenotaph to the memory of John III.; and it was not till the next reign, thirty-six years later, that his body received interment.[146]

♦His sons.♦ The history of his three sons deserves a word of remark. Charles XII., who as a boy was a devoted admirer of John Sobieski,[147] invaded Poland in 1705, and would have offered the crown to Prince James; but the prince, being then in Germany with his brother Constantine, was seized by the Saxon troops, and honourably confined at Leipsic; and, as his brother Alexander nobly refused to profit by his misfortune, the opportunity passed by. Alexander died at Rome as a capuchin, and his two brothers resided in Poland on their estates. James Sobieski had two daughters, of whom the younger, Maria Clementina, was married to the Chevalier St. George, called the “Old Pretender,” and became the mother of the unhappy Charles Edward.

♦Character of John Sobieski,♦ The life and exploits of John Sobieski have in modern times scarcely received their due meed of attention. Born in a country half civilized, half barbarous, whose independence has now been completely effaced, his glory has not proved so enduring as that of less remarkable men who have figured on a more conspicuous stage. As general, as patriot, and as Christian hero, he will bear comparison with the greatest names in any age. ♦As general.♦ No man ever won so many battles in the most desperate situations; no man ever achieved such deeds with forces often insignificant and always unruly. His fertility of resource was amazing; yet it was only equal to the swiftness of his execution. His chief glory is that, unlike any other great conqueror, his grandest triumphs were obtained in defensive warfare, and that all his efforts were directed either to the salvation of his country or to the honour of his religion. ♦As patriot.♦ His individual greatness appears most striking in the ascendancy which he early acquired in his own country. His frank and simple bearing, his noble mien, and his stirring eloquence, enabled him, while he was still a subject, to sway the minds and wills of his fellow-countrymen as if by an irresistible charm. ♦As Christian hero.♦ He laboured for the safety of Poland with a perfect singleness of aim; and when that was fully secured, he strove with a like fixity of purpose for the destruction of the Ottoman power. To us his crusading ardour may seem to have been out of date, but we must remember that in the seventeenth century the Turks still inspired a lively alarm, and that if at the present day we regard them with pity or contempt, the first step towards this change was accomplished by the sword of John Sobieski.

♦As king.♦ As a king, he is not entitled to the same high praise. In a land of peace and order he might have ranked as a benefactor to his people, but in the home of licence and anarchy his temper was too gentle and refined to employ the severity which was needed. A king of Poland, if he was to heal the disorders of his realm, must first have made himself feared; the natural temperament of Sobieski made him prefer to be loved. Clemency and generous forgiveness were parts of his disposition;[148] and the necessary result upon his policy was that he resigned himself too easily to bear the vexations which surrounded him. When he did act, his method was most unwise; for in his principal attempt at reform--when he aimed at establishing hereditary succession--he exposed himself to the charge of a grasping self-interest.

♦As head of his family.♦ But we cannot acquit him of deplorable weakness in the management of his own family. A hasty passion had thrown him into the power of an unscrupulous and despotic woman, and his uxorious fondness left her only too much scope for the activity of her caprice. We have seen more than once that he could oppose her when his duty seemed clearly marked out for him; but, for the sake of his own peace, he allowed her to intermeddle without ceasing in the affairs of Poland. The only result of his indulgence was that very misery in his domestic circle which he had sought to avoid. Of the charge against him of avarice we have already spoken. His chivalrous enthusiasm and cultivated intelligence would have gone far to disprove it, even if the treasure which he left behind him had not been found to be only moderate.

♦His great services,♦ His services to his country were extraordinary, although he himself confessed that he could not arrest her fall. He found her at the opening of his career plunged in civil strife and beset with foreign enemies; he left her at its close with peace fully assured to her, and with her glory at its zenith. Within two years of his death the peace of Carlowitz was signed with the Turks, by which they renounced all claim to Kaminiec, Podolia, and the Ukraine. The fruit of his victories was thus fully reaped; but his efforts to revive commerce and to form an infantry among the serfs, which would have been the first step to their emancipation, were never afterwards renewed. ♦Could only retard the fall of Poland.♦ A patriot life like his may be said to have tried the institutions of his country, and to have found them wanting. After seventy-five years of anarchy, that dreaded Partition, which had been mooted in his day[149] but which he had postponed for a hundred years, was at length carried into effect. Austria, whom he had saved by his prowess, Prussia, whom he had hoped to reunite to his country, Russia, whom his ancestor[150] had laid at her feet--each took a share of the spoil. No other patriot arose to save Poland from her rapid decline; and John Sobieski may be called the last, as he was the greatest, of her independent kings.

Oxford: A. Thomas Shrimpton and Son, 23 and 24, Broad Street.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The burghers, however, were under a separate civil jurisdiction. A tribunal for administering this foreign or Teutonic law was established in 1347 in six principal towns.

[2] Poland in the seventeenth century measured 2600 miles in
circumference, while France measured only 2040.

[3] _Cosmography_, by Peter Heylin, published in 1648, reprinted
from his _Microcosmus_, published in 1621.

[4] _Relatione di Polonia_ (1598), quoted by Ranke (App. No. 66 to his _History of the Popes_). The same Nuncio says the Poles confessed to him that they preferred a weak monarch to an able one.

[5] The whole of the country called Prussia once belonged to Poland. Part of it, after being lost in the eleventh century, eventually came into the hands of the Elector of Brandenburg, who acknowledged the nominal suzerainty of Poland; the other part--Polish Prussia--was not lost till the eighteenth century.

[6] See Dr. South’s letter to Dr. Edward Pococke, Hebrew lecturer at Oxford, describing his travels in Poland. (p 71.) He mentions that he had heard them make this remark: and it is curious that his letter bears date Dec. 16th, 1677--six years before the relief of Vienna.

[7] This is denied by Salvandy, _Histoire du Roi Jean Sobieski_, vol. ii. p. 52, ed. 1876, though he has elsewhere admitted it by implication (vol. i. p. 402-3).

[8] The generals had no seat in the Senate by virtue of their office, but the king always made them palatines or castellans. DALEYRAC, _Polish Manuscripts or Secret History of the reign of John Sobieski_, ch. i. p. 9.

[9] DALEYRAC, ch. i. p. 34.

[10] The first was simply “veto,” the second “veto, sisto
activitatem.”

[11] They were always prolonged, however, when public business
was pressing.

[12] This castellan ranked even above all the palatines, and headed the Pospolite. The story is that in an important battle the palatine of Cracow ran away, while the castellan stood his ground, and their rank was thus reversed. (COYER, _Histoire de Sobieski_, p. 69, 8vo ed.)

[13] The Abbé Coyer makes her his daughter; but he is wrong. The daughter of Zolkiewski married into the family of Danilowicz, and was the mother of Theophila. (SALVANDY, vol. i. 145-147.)

[14] The disparity is said to have been much greater, but it is necessary to bear in mind throughout the life of Sobieski that the numbers of the combatants are uncertain, owing to the Polish habit of exaggeration.

[15] Most historians (and Salvandy in his first edition, 1827) follow Coyer in giving the date 1629. Salvandy gives no reason for the change in his later editions; but Sobieski must have been older than fourteen when he travelled in France; and it appears that his manuscript favours the earlier date. Coyer is most inaccurate until the campaign of Podhaic, where his original authorities begin, and is untrustworthy afterwards.

[16] Russia, properly so called, was at this time a province of
Poland. The empire of the Czars was termed Muscovy.

[17] Sobieski himself was not free from this feeling. See the
collection of his letters by M. le Comte Plater (Letter xvii.).

[18] It was part of Dido’s dying speech:

“Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor.”

Theophila is said to have shown her sons the hero’s shield while repeating the Spartan injunction “with it or upon it.”

[19] Louise de Nevers. The Sobieskis were in France when the embassy came to fetch her. She also married Casimir, the next king.

[20] We find only the bare statement that they visited England (Salvandy; Palmer, _Memoirs of John Sobieski_). It is possible the civil war may have deterred them.

[21] Of these only five were paid to the family of the murdered
man, the other five going to his lord.

[22] _Commentariorum Chotimensis belli libri tres._ CRACOW, 1646.

[23] These were not broken during a march, differing in this from
the laager. See DALEYRAC, ch. i. p. 24.

[24] It was not a feudal tenure, however, for the nobles did not acknowledge any vassalage to the king. It was merely a bargain.--DALEYRAC, ch. i. p. 23.

[25] Dyer (_Modern Europe_, vol. iii. p. 42, ed. 1864) gives no authority for his extraordinary statement that Wladislas entered into an elaborate conspiracy with the Cossacks against his own kingdom. Nothing could be more foreign to his character.

[26] Coyer makes Mark Sobieski die four years earlier, but his account of the Cossack war is so confused, that it is difficult to tell to what events he refers.

[27] He was descended from the elder branch of the house of Vasa--that of his grandfather, John III. of Sweden. His father, Sigismund III. of Poland, had by his Polish sympathies and Catholic education, alienated the affections of the Swedes.

[28] The Polish regular army was so called because a fourth of the royal revenues was employed to maintain them. SALVANDY, i. p. 404.

[29] Coyer, who is followed by other writers, says that Sobieski was once a hostage with the khan of the Tartars at his own request, and made him a steady friend of Poland.

[30] Frederic William, the founder of the greatness of the house
of Hohenzollern.

[31] He only carried the standard in the Pospolite; his office was a high military command. Coyer makes this the reward of his quelling the mutiny at Zborow, which seems most improbable.

[32] Daleyrac (ch. i. p. 28) represents the army as being at the
mercy of the Grand Treasurer, who frequently pocketed the money.

[33] The mansion of a Polish noble was called his “court.”

[34] But he says she was then only thirty-three, and she was certainly six years older. Louise de Nevers would not have taken away to Poland a child of five years as part of her suite.

[35] Connor (_Letters on Poland_, Letter iv.) actually represents
that he was unwilling to marry her until tempted by a large dowry.

[36] A letter of Sobieski, describing this plan to his wife, who was staying in France, was shown to Condé, who had no hope of its success.

[37] He was tormented with remorse for marrying his brother’s
widow.

[38] Connor (Letter iii.) mentions having heard this from aged
Poles.

[39] He stayed till the diet of election was opened.

[40] The next king, though related to it, could hardly be said to belong to it, as he was descended from Korybuth, uncle of Jagellon.

[41] Connor, Letter iv.

[42] Begun by his duel with one of their clan in 1648.

[43] Married to Radziwill, the Croesus of Lithuania.

[44] The king bound himself by the _pacta conventa_ not to marry
without the consent of the republic.

[45] See Daleyrac, chap. i. p. 39.

[46] A “seraskier” was a commander-in-chief, who received his
commission direct from the Grand Vizier.

[47] The chiefs of these principalities, now united under the name of Roumania, had been offended at the insolence of the seraskier, and their troops, being Christians, disliked serving under the Turks.

[48] _History of the Grand Viziers, Mahomet and Ashmet Cuprogli_, by F. de Chassepol; Englished by John Evelyn, junior, published 1677. See bk. iv.

[49] Salvandy (i. 419) says Hussein was cut down by Prince Radziwill; but most accounts agree that he escaped and died of his wounds at Kaminiec.

[50] Coyer appears to have first made this statement. It would be interesting to know his authority. His mainstay, _Familiar Letters of the Chancellor Zaluski_, does not support him.

[51] Coyer says that the Polish army, on their way to Kotzim, met
this envoy.

[52] Letter 329. “La victoire du Grand Maréchal est si grand qu’on ne doute point qu’il ne soit élu roi.” She does not however know much about Sobieski, for a little later (Letter 333) she represents him as of a different religion from the nation.

[53] Connor, who is evidently repeating the gossip of the king’s
reign, says that he “worked underhand for himself.”

[54] Salvandy enumerates them (i. 430), but it can hardly be supposed that they all sent envoys. Among them were the Duke of York and his son-in-law, the Prince of Orange.

[55] Coyer says that Michael Paz, in the council of war after the battle of Kotzim, burst out with this as a condition of his supporting any candidate.

[56] Dr. South describes him as follows: “He is a tall, corpulent prince, large-faced, and full eyes, and goes always in the same dress with his subjects, with his hair cut round about his ears like a Monk, and wears a fur cap, extraordinarily rich with diamonds and jewels, large whiskers, and no neck-cloth.”--_Letter to Dr. Pococke_, p. 5.

[57] Czartoryski, Archbishop of Guesna, had died suddenly at a
banquet given by Sobieski.

[58] Three contemporary authorities give this eloquent speech _in extenso_; and the language which is common to all of them, and which is here quoted, enables us to understand its electrical effect upon the audience.

[59] This generally occurred on Church lands, for nobles could make themselves heard against the general in the Diet. Daleyrac (chap. i. p. 12) says that he had heard of these officers making 6,000 francs by bribes.

[60] No queen of Poland was entitled to any allowance from the republic (or pension in case of widowhood) without having been crowned.

[61] Daleyrac (ch. i. p. 11) says that the Lithuanians are a worse scourge to the country than the Tartars. We shall find them as barbarous to the friendly people of Hungary.

[62] Coyer makes the astounding mistake of stating that Köprili died in 1674, and was succeeded in the command in Poland by Kara Mustapha. (pp. 210, 216, 8vo ed.)

[63] The account followed by Salvandy (ii. 29) represents the whole Turkish army, nearly 200,000 strong, as having been present. Coyer, following Zaluski, gives the account in the text.

[64] He had been previously received by John in the camp at
Leopol. The German name for that town is Lemberg.

[65] He died of apoplexy on receiving the intelligence.

[66] Daleyrac (ch. i. 22). The infantry formed the rear guard,
and when composed of Cossacks, were useful in a dangerous retreat.

[67] The regular army, called “Komport,” or sometimes “Quartians,” was supposed to consist of 48,000 men, of which 12,000 were Lithuanians; but it hardly ever reached this amount. (Daleyrac, ch. i.)

[68] This was a most valuable addition to his revenue.

[69] Coyer says that the Muscovites were advancing into Poland to
the king’s relief, but this seems improbable.

[70] Coyer implies that the condition was refused, Ibrahim scornfully remarking that the Greeks, who then held the holy places, were Christians as well as the Latins.

[71] Letter 537. “La paix de Pologne est faite, mais romanesquement. Ce héros, à la tête de quinze mille hommes, entourés de deux cent mille, les a forcés, l’épée à la main, à signer la traité. Il s’était campé si avantageusement que depuis La Calprenède on n’avait rien vu de pareil.”

[72] The expedition was made and failed ignominiously.

[73] Palmer, _Memoirs of Sobieski_. See also _Biographie
Universelle_, art. “Hevelius.”

[74] Bourbon l’Archambault, in the department of Allier.

[75] He alleged as his reason the poverty of the marquis. Some scandal was caused by the attempt of the French queen to secure this honour for a certain Brisacier, her attendant, who represented himself as the natural son of Sobieski during his visit to France. John could not remember the circumstances, and the French queen afterwards denied that she wrote to him upon the subject. The affair was never explained.

[76] In which he summoned the Diet and enumerated the agenda.

[77] Oratio principis Radziwill ad Imperatorem.

[78] The Diet afterwards sent succours to the relief of Vienna, and the electors of Bavaria and Saxony each commanded a contingent.

[79] DALEYRAC, Preface to _Polish Manuscripts_.

[80] DALEYRAC, ch. ii. p. 44.

[81] Salvandy (ii. 161) says that in August Leopold offered to cede him the kingdom of Hungary, and to guarantee the succession to his family, and that John answered that he wished for no other reward but the glory of deserving well of God and man. The offer, if made, could not have been _bona fide_.

[82] This is the estimate of Sobieski himself in his famous letter to the queen after the battle. He bases it on the number of tents, which he places at nearly 100,000. Daleyrac says that a list was found in the Grand Vizier’s tent, which gave the number of the Turks alone as 191,800.

[83] Daleyrac tells an amusing story of the way in which these Cossacks brought in their prisoners. The king offered a reward to those who could catch him a “Tongue” whom he could cross-examine. A Cossack brought a prisoner to the king’s tent, flung him on the ground like a sack, and went away without a word. Shortly afterwards he came back, and putting his head into the tent, said, “John, they have paid me the money; God restore it thee! Good-night!”

[84] “The siege of Vienna had given terror to all Europe, and the utmost reproch to the French, who ’tis believed brought in the Turks for diversion that the French king might the more easily swallow Flanders, and pursue his unjust conquests upon the empire, while we sat unconcerned and under a deadly charm from somebody.”--EVELYN’s _Diary_, September 23rd, 1683.

[85] Letter of the Emperor to the King of Poland from Passau,
August 24th.

[86] A grand subscription was being raised in Rome. Cardinal
Barberini alone gave 20,000 florins.

[87] DALEYRAC, chap. i. p. 21, and SALVANDY.

[88] Published by N. A. Salvandy; translated by M. le Comte
Plater. Paris, 1826.

[89] SALVANDY, ii. pp. 173, 174, quoted in _Foreign Quarterly
Review_, No. xiv. vol. vii.

[90] He begins every letter to her, “Seule joie de mon âme, charmante et bien-aimée Mariette!” He calls himself her faithful and devoted Celadon, and reminds her that it would soon be her turn to become the wooer. Yet he was fifty-nine years old, and she was probably forty-eight.

[91] His army probably did not know of it; but Daleyrac says he had the news from a spy. It is inconceivable that he should not have employed a few scouts.

[92] His order of battle given in Coyer (pp. 316-318), in which the Duke of Lorraine commanded the centre, was written previous to the ascent of the Kahlemberg.

[93] SALVANDY (ii. 190) says that at this moment there was an eclipse of the moon, which increased the panic; but Daleyrac, whose account he follows in other respects, does not mention it.

[94] Sobieski relates these particulars in Letter ix.

[95] DALEYRAC (ii. 41). This information he had from some captive
Turks.

[96] He added that he had travelled for four leagues over Turkish corpses. Unfortunately for the credibility of his tale, his journey to Rome lay in the direction opposite to the field of battle.

[97] _Annales de l’Empire._ He states the Polish loss at 200.

[98] This is the number given by the French official gazette at
the time.

[99] Yet, when shortly afterwards an official at court was presented with a sword of Sobieski, the interest excited was intense, and engravings were taken of it. SALVANDY (ii. 420) says that the sword of Sobieski was the cherished possession of Napoleon at St. Helena. A French prelate was author of the witty distich:

Dignior imperio numne Austrius? anne Polonus?
Odrysias acies hic fugat, ille fugit.

[100] “Votre Majesté s’est montrée digne non seulement de la couronne de Pologne, mais de celle de l’univers. L’empire du monde vous serait dû, si le ciel l’eût reservé à un seul potentat.”

[101] Constantine Wiesnowiesçki, cousin of the late king Michael,
the Emperor’s brother-in-law.

[102] Prince Eugène, who was present, says, “N’étant pas fait encore aux manières allemandes je m’amusai beaucoup de la fiére entrevue de l’empereur avec le roi de Pologne.” Sa vie écrite par lui même. Paris, 1810.

[103] Letter x.

[104] Letter xii.

[105] Letter xv.

[106] “Si namque ad clangorem memoratae victoriae vel levis armorum terra marique succedat ostentatio, procul dubio gemens sub Tyrannide Grecia ac ipsa Constantinopolis perfido recalcitraret domino, suasque respiceret origines.... Forte Mahometanum Imperium ad sua devolvatur principia, et ubi satis in altum surrexerit lapsu graviori ruat.”--Letter of Sobieski from Vizier’s tent, September 13.

[107] VOLTAIRE, _Annales de l’Empire_. Curiously enough, Sobieski, in Letter x. (September 17), after mentioning Hannibal’s inaction after his victory, says, “To-day we know well how to profit by ours.”

[108] Letter x.

[109] Letter xi.

[110] Chèvremont (_L’état actuel de Pologne_, 12mo, 1702) talks of the “vile et mesquin empressement,” which he showed by this act. He constantly speaks of him as “ce roi avare.” As Chèvremont was secretary to the Duke of Lorraine, it is to be feared that the latter was not satisfied with his share of the spoil.

[111] A kind of dysentery, called the Hungarian fever.

[112] Letters xx. xxi.

[113] Letter xvii.

[114] Letter xvi. Coyer, who had never seen this letter, takes up his favourite theme of a king pursuing selfish glory; and Coxe (_House of Austria_, ii. 449) countenances the idea.

[115] Letter xvii.

[116] This, as Coyer says, was most discreditable to the Christians. But Sobieski explains that the Turks had “made no prisoners” two days before, and that the sight of the bleeding heads of Poles upon the rampart of the fort maddened his troops.

[117] Letter xix.

[118] Letter xxi. The king notices in the same place that the Turks called him their executioner on account of the number of men which his victories had cost them.

[119] Quoted by SALVANDY, ii. 282-284.

[120] Letter xxix.

[121] This we learn from a letter of Sobieski to the Pope, dated from Javarow, August 15th, 1684. Having 60,000 men (two-thirds of them Cossacks), he started with large hopes. “Me ad Turcarum regiam [illos] ducturum.... Liberator Orientis rediturus vel pro Christi fide moriturus.” Sooner than give up the crusade, he announced that he would resign the crown “tamquam ut humillimus miles vitam in Hungaricis agminibus funderem.”

[122] Said to have been the same Paz with whom he fought a duel
in his youth.

[123] A letter of the king to Jablonowski after this defeat, in which he gently complains of his coldness, shows his character in a most amiable light. “Whether I have merited your indifference or not, come promptly to dissipate the cloud which has covered our intimate friendship, and believe that your presence will be more efficacious towards my speedy recovery than all the art of my physicians.”

[124] Chèvremont (p. 116) says that both she and the king received bribes from France, but as secretary to the Duke of Lorraine he is an Austrian authority. He admits that even on the morrow of the battle of Vienna the Emperor had no intention of fulfilling this promise of the hand of the archduchess.

[125] The dangers of this expedition did not deter John from antiquarian researches. Passing an ancient mound he ascended it, and after examination pronounced it to be the work of Decebalus, king of Dacia.

[126] All the orders of the realm sat together while the Diet
lasted.

[127] He seems to have been in favour of John Casimir’s attempt
to name a successor.

[128] Candles were not allowed in the Diet, and the session having lasted a long time, a Lithuanian took advantage of the dusk to smack a bishop in the face, and a tumult ensued. About the same time Sapieha, the Lithuanian general, had a grave quarrel with the Bishop of Wilna. One party used excommunication, and the other violence, and no efforts of the king could reconcile them.

[129] She was always intriguing in the Diet, and did her utmost to dissolve that of Grodno. She was accused of selling offices of state, and binding the recipient to support one of her sons at the next election (Connor). She certainly had a control over the king’s appointments, and he so loved domestic peace that he generally followed her advice.

[130] Prince James (born in 1667) was called the son of the Grand
Marshal, and the other two the sons of the king.

[131] This marriage made him brother-in-law of the sovereigns of
Spain, Portugal, and Austria.

[132] Letter xi. from Presburg, September 19th.

[133] CONNOR, _Letters on Poland_.

[134] The others, besides the Slavonian, were French, Italian,
German, and Turkish.

[135] SOUTH’s _Letter to Dr. Edward Pococke_, p. 5.

[136] Connor describes a discussion as to what part of the body
the soul inhabits.

[137] It is to be feared, however, that Bethsal had sometimes
abused his position.

[138] CONNOR, Letter iv.

[139] “The king opened his coffers to the designs of the League so far that his own family could scarcely believe it.”--DALEYRAC, Preface.

[140] DALEYRAC, chap. i. p. 33.

[141] Connor says that the grandees paid him outwardly the highest respect, never eating with him at his table, and that those who most abused him in Parliament showed him great deference elsewhere.

[142] BURNET (_History of his Own Time_, iii. 348) asserts that “he died at last under a general contempt.” This is curious side by side with the fact that shortly before his death the new Pope, Innocent XII., proposed to him to mediate between France and Austria.

[143] Salvandy (ii. 395) says that it was also the day of his accession. It certainly was not the day of his election, or of his signing the “pacta conventa,” or of his coronation.

[144] Connor says that he died of a dropsy turned into a scirrhus or hard tumour. The blood being prevented circulating, the humours were driven to the head, and apoplexy ensued.

[145] It is said that she attempted to procure the election of Jablonowski with the intention of marrying him. She soon left Poland and resided in France, where she died in 1717, at the age of eighty-two.

[146] SALVANDY, ii. 409. The fact is almost incredible.

[147] It is said that he refused to learn Latin until he heard that the Polish hero was a proficient in that language. When he was told of his death he exclaimed, “So great a king ought never to have died.”

[148] Zaluski relates several instances of his readiness to own himself in the wrong, and of his unwillingness to avenge a personal insult.

[149] By Charles X. of Sweden. It is said that documents are in
existence which prove that Louis XIV. also entertained the idea.

[150] Zolkiewski.

“THE OXFORD TRANSLATIONS OF THE CLASSICS.”

EURIPIDES: HECUBA, 1/6. } {
EURIPIDES: MEDEA, 1/6. } { With the most difficult
EURIPIDES: ALCESTIS, 1/6. } { words parsed and explained,
SOPHOCLES: ŒDIPUS TYRANNUS, 2/-. } { by a First
SOPHOCLES: AJAX, 2/-. } { Class-man, Balliol College,
SOPHOCLES: PHILOCTETES, 2/-. } { Oxford.
ÆSCHINES IN CTESIPHONTEM, 2/6. } {

CICERO’S SECOND PHILIPPIC. With Short Notes. 1/6.

CICERO’S SEX. ROSCIUS AMERINUS. With Short Notes. 1/6.

PLATO’S APOLOGY OF SOCRATES. Literally translated from the
Text of Baiter and Orelli. Arranged for interleaving (if
desired) with the Fourth Edition, Zurich, 1861. 1/-; cloth,
1/6.

PLATO’S MENO. A Dialogue on the Nature and Origin of
Virtue, prepared from the Text of Baiter and Orelli.
Arranged for interleaving (if desired) with the Second
Edition of the Greek Text, Stutgard, 1878. 1/-; cloth, 1/6.

TERENCE’S ANDRIA. Literally translated from Wagner’s Text.
Arranged for interleaving (if desired) with the Cambridge
Larger and Smaller Editions of Terence. 1/-; cloth, 1/6.

TERENCE’S HAUTON-TIMORUMENOS; or, Self-Tormentor. Literally
translated from Wagner’s Text. Arranged for interleaving
(if desired) with the Cambridge Larger and Smaller Editions
of Terence. 1/-; cloth, 1/6.