‘If you want arms, I will give you some!’
‘We will not use them.’
There, in truth, lay the secret of this movement, which was intangible from its moral nature, and which was terrible because it was vague. The address from Warsaw reached St. Petersburg; the Emperor Alexander read it out loud before several members of his family.
‘But these Poles ask for nothing,’ remarked one.
‘That is just what is so serious about it,’ replied the Emperor; and his retort was that of a sensible man.
If this perilous situation was not to continue, only one course could be pursued by Russia. She must arrange a termination, and reply to this passive revolution in Poland by sincere, efficient, and ready concessions. Russia did not do this, and she lost a month in delay. As to her sincerity, it was doubtful, to say the least of it. What was most obvious was her embarrassment; and by the confusion in which she moved, her policy allowed this embarrassment to be only too well perceived. At Warsaw, while Prince Gortchakof made some concessions, Count Zamoyski was challenged, but did not reply. A marvellous unity of wills kept order in the town, and the authorities waited for a solution of the difficulty to be sent from St. Petersburg. M. Muchanof, still master of the Ministry of the Interior, was inspired by the melancholy policy which Austria had followed in Galicia, and he did send out a clandestine circular, urging the peasants to rise upon their landlords. The Jews discovered this circular, and so much indignation was excited by it, that Prince Gortchakof was soon obliged to dismiss M. Muchanof from his office, and he left Warsaw amidst the yells and hisses of the populace. The affair, considered in all its bearings, is a strange mark of the persistent contradictions which distinguished Russian measures, and distinguished them at a time when to be sincere would have been to be judicious.
Even in St. Petersburg no one knew what to do. Time was gained, and then it was lost; and when the Emperor Alexander did, on the last day of March, resolve to send to Warsaw a plan for new reforms, the movement had by that time become too consistent; the minds of men were too strongly excited, and too much made up, to be contented with such timid and equivocal concessions as ill befitted the gravity of the case. For of what did the offered reforms consist? It is true, that they suppressed those two departments of the Senate which sat at Warsaw, and which were the signs of the complete assimilation of Poland with Russia. They promised the election of provincial councils, of district councils; they offered a new organisation of public instruction, with a creation of a Faculty of Rights, and with more respect for the Polish language. Finally, they summoned the Marquis Wiélopolski to the direction of public education; the Marquis being a Pole. This was always something, although it did not even entirely come up to the statut of Nicholas. And what at bottom was wanting, was a guarantee for the sincere adoption of a really liberal policy, which should be carried out by men truly devoted to their country, and animated by a national spirit. Unfortunately, to the suspicions of the Poles (suspicions which were only too well founded) Russia replied by a system of permanent contradictions, one which for the last year has shown itself to be never nearer to reaction than when there was a talk about concessions. Concessions so offered were for the edification of Europe, which looked on. The facts remain the same, or rather they become worse, and in appearing to yield to this all-powerful movement of public opinion, it was the object of the Russian Government to stain it, and to represent the movement as the work of a few incorrigibly factious persons. But they seemed to wish to treat with this reviving nationality, and on the 1st of April the plan of reform arrived from St. Petersburg was published; six days later, however, they dissolved, without any warning, that Agricultural Society in which the country beheld its image, which had never interfered except to make peace, which Prince Gortchakof had himself thanked, and which was now done away with, on the strange pretext ‘that, under the present circumstances, and in consequence of the position which it had latterly assumed, it had ceased to answer its original purpose.’ Of all those bodies of constables and delegates which had existed, and by means of which for a whole month peace had been maintained in the town, not one was allowed to remain. All, with a sort of impatience, were swept away, while proclamations were multiplied and troops were hastily advanced to Warsaw.
What was the result?
Public opinion resented as a provocation the dissolution of the Agricultural Society, and the minds of the people rose with indignation, not against the reforms, which might, perhaps, have been accepted, but against that double-faced policy in which they could see nothing but menaces; and peace thenceforward became more and more impossible between Russia and a people which, as M. Tymowski said in his secret report, was ‘full of life and of obstinacy, and deeply penetrated by a sense of law. Everything,’ he added, ‘depended on the good faith observed with them.’ On the 7th of April, 1861, an immense crowd went to the cemetery to pray for the slain of February. Later in the evening they marched to the square at the castle, which was occupied by troops, and there with loud cries demanded the repeal of the order by which the Agricultural Society had been dissolved. But this crowd was so far from threatening any violence, that the military did not continue to keep the ground, and they dispersed at last, promising to reassemble on the following evening. Accordingly, in the evening of the 8th, a still larger assemblage repeated the manifestation of the preceding day, in front of the castle. The Prince Lieutenant himself came down and mixed with the crowd in order to appease it. He asked them what they wanted; and the response was unanimous, being contained in these significant words, ‘We want our country.’
For the rest, nothing in this excited concourse of men, women, and children betrayed any aggressive thoughts, or any intentions of strife. They were warned that they must disperse; but with dark passion they replied, ‘You may kill us, but we will not move;’ and before the troops drawn up in order of battle, they remained impassive, till suddenly a post-chaise happened to pass, and the postilion played on his horn the air of Dombrowski’s legions: ‘No, never shall Poland perish!’ Immediately an enthusiastic cry burst from every breast, and as the populace fell on their knees, a movement was perceptible through the whole crowd. Did the troops believe that they were about to be attacked, or did they obey a command? Were they decided by the plain and conclusive reason, that a resolution to fire had been adopted the evening before, because a stop must be put to this state of affairs?