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.
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