'"1. That it was the Minister of Foreign Affairs who engaged us on the 7th of July, to send a messenger to Warsaw, whose travelling expenses were advanced by the Minister: that the object of this messenger was, as his Excellency the Count Sebastiani told us, to induce our government to wait two months longer, for that was the time necessary for the negociations.
'"2. That the circular of our Minister of Foreign Affairs, dated the 15th of August, signed by the Minister ad interim, Audne Horodyski, and also another circular of the 24th of the same month, signed by the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Theodore Morawski, came to our hands by the post of the 14th current; that they are the same circulars which we at first officially communicated to the Count Sebastiani, on the 15th of September, and which we immediately after addressed to the journals, where they appeared on the 17th and 18th, and that those two circulars in fact explain the effect which the mission of the above envoy produced at Warsaw.
'"Le Gen. Kniazewiecz—L: Plater."'
Paris, the 20th November, 1831.
Gen. Lamarque: 'Poland! Can it be true that this heroic nation, who offered her bosom to the lance of the Tartars only to serve as a buckler for us, is to fall because she has followed the counsels which France and England have given her! Thus then is to be explained the inaction of her army at the moment when it ought to have taken a decisive step. Thus is to be explained the irresolution of the generalissimo, who from the first moment had showed so much audacity and skill. We may now know why he did not profit by the passage of the Vistula, which divided the army of the enemy, to give him battle either on one bank or the other. The minister rejects with indignation this imputation of complicity. He declares formally that he had made no promise, that he had given no hope, that he had fixed no date.—Honorable Poles, whom I have seen this morning, affirm the contrary. Our colleague, M. Lafayette, will give you details, almost official, on this subject.'
SESSION OF THE 13th SEPTEMBER.
Gen. Lafayette: 'I will ask this, without the least expectation of receiving a reply, but only to render a just homage to the conduct of the Poles, and of their government,—I will ask, if it is true that the Poles were urged by the French government, by the English ministers, and by the French ambassador at London, to use moderation, and not to risk a battle, because the measures which those powers were to take in behalf of Poland would not be delayed but for two months, and that in two months Poland would enter into the great family of nations.—Those two months have expired; and I state this here to render justice to the conduct of the Polish government, the Polish army, and its chief, who may have thought that on his giving a general battle, to prevent the passage of the Vistula, they could thwart the good intentions of the French and English government in this respect. I think that this will be considered a fair procedure towards Messieurs the Ministers, to whom the questions shall be addressed on Monday, to apprize them that this is one of those which will be then submitted to them.'
These documents will be for the present age and for posterity an explanation of the true causes of the ruin of Poland. She fell not by the enormous forces of her enemy, but by his perfidious intrigues. We cannot accuse France or England, and indeed no Pole does accuse them; for, although we may have some enemies in those countries, yet we cannot conceive of the existence of any causes of hostility towards us, by which those nations can be actuated.[83] They were blinded by the promises of Russia,—by the solemn assurances[84] which she gave, that she would soon arrange every thing in the most favorable manner for Poland. In this web of intrigue were those cabinets entangled, who would else have followed the common dictates of humanity in succoring Poland. While she was thus deceiving the cabinets, Russia was doing her utmost to sow distrust and disunion among our people. It was her intrigues, through the instrumentality of the traitors whom she had gained for her accomplices, that caused the estrangement of the nation from Skrzynecki, who, having a true Polish heart, had repelled all her vile attempts to shake his integrity, and who, by his talent and energy, had so often defeated and might still defeat the enormous masses which she had sent against us. Those intrigues succeeded, and Russia gained her end in overwhelming Poland with misery; not reflecting that by so doing she was bringing misfortunes upon her own head. Russia, by a liberal concession to Poland of her national rights, could have been truly great. Not to speak of the influence of the Polish institutions upon the happiness of her own people; her true stability and strength could in no way be so well secured as by the independent existence of Poland. They who have labored for our destruction were not then true Russians; they were the enemies of their country and of humanity;—heartless calculators, acting with a single view to their own personal aggrandizement;—men, in fact, who have no country but self. Equally the enemies of the monarch and of the people, they make the one a tyrant, and sport with the misery of the other.