“Have you forgotten,” she said, “that we married out of mutual sympathy, and not only with the consent but by the wish of our parents? These ties were to last for ever; and God sanctioned and blessed them by granting us children. You have sometimes been weak, but I shall still persevere, being fully persuaded that both my duty and my happiness are involved....
“I shall always remember that when Francis was born you were on your knees in the adjoining room, praying to God for me and for our child. You loved us then, and if you searched your inmost heart, you would still find these two sentiments there, for I believe nothing could ever efface them.
“You see my heart and soul laid bare before you; read your own; one word, only one, and I will forget everything; I await it with the greatest impatience.
“Your very humble and very obedient servant,
Anna Potocka.”
This letter and many others remained without effect; the Lord Chamberlain had already made up his mind. Not only was he completely under the charm of Hélène’s fascination, but, as we said before, the prospect of the immense fortune she would possess singularly strengthened his determination.
FOOTNOTES:
[78] This Diet was called the Grand or Constitutional Diet; it lasted four years, and decreed hereditary rights to the throne, religious liberty, the maintenance of a permanent army, and a new distribution of taxes, affecting also the nobility. See Ferrand’s History of the Dismemberment of Poland.
[79] The dismemberment of Poland did not arrest the intellectual progress of the nation, which from that time devoted itself to the preservation of the Polish language, and to the protection of the monuments of the country. The influence exercised by Prince Czartoryski in the Emperor Alexander’s councils greatly assisted this movement. He purchased the magnificent library of the King Stanislaus-Augustus, which, added to his own, became the most important depository of Slavonic history and literature. It was confiscated by Russia in 1831.