Count Zamoyski, always sincerely attached to the faith of his fathers, even before the death of a beloved mother had developed in him a fervent piety, lived long enough to witness this happy change in Catholic opinion. He had the consolation of seeing the entire church moved, at the voice of its chief, by the incomparable sufferings of Poland. In France, at least, every Catholic worthy the name addressed prayers without ceasing to the divine mercy, that the country of St. Hedwige and Sobieski might one day resume her place, free among the nations. This harmony between the irrepressible aspirations of his patriotism and the daily increasing fervor of his religious sentiments threw over the last years of his life a warm and consoling light.
But before arriving in port, how stormy the voyage! Bound by soul yet more than by the ties of blood to his uncle, Prince Adam Czartoryski, he had been twenty-five years his lieutenant, his coadjutor, and the sharer of his fortunes; like him, too, encountering continually repulse, deception, and injustice, without being embittered or discouraged.
Belgium, always hospitable, took full possession of her nationality in the same year, 1831, when Poland seemed to have lost hers. She immediately opened the ranks of her army to Count Ladislas, with the grade of colonel, a position he had won on the bloody banks of the Vistula.
For fifteen years [Footnote 193] he watched in vain for an opportunity to once more draw his sword in behalf of his own land, or for some cause which might even indirectly serve her interests.
[Footnote 193: From 1832 to 1847.]
He was obliged to content himself with employing his intercourse with the political men of the two great constitutional countries, to secure to the Polish question, in the order of the day, some parliamentary discussion or some diplomatic bias, and to obtain from the French chambers and the English parliament those periodical demonstrations which seemed to him so many protestations of right against the most odious of political crimes; so many guarantees against a proscription which the sad destinies of men too often drew down on them, to the profit and encouragement of injustice.
At length, in 1846, he thought he saw the dawn of better days. In the short counterfeit alliance between Pius IX. and Italian liberty, he hastened, with sixty other Polish officers, to offer their devotedness and military experience to the new pontiff, whom all believed menaced by Austria even more than by the Revolution. From thence he passed as a volunteer into the army of Charles Albert, and shared, by the side of that noble and unfortunate sovereign, in all the vicissitudes of the struggle between Piedmont and Austria. Austria, we must remember, at the time we speak of, was not the liberal Austria of the present day; and no Pole could look on this empire as aught save the author and accomplice of the calamities of his country. Piedmont being defeated and restricted to its ancient limits, it was to Hungary that Count Zamoyski next turned his steps. Hungary was then in a state of insurrection against Austria, but was also a victim herself to an insurrection of her Sclavic population, unwisely irritated. To gain from Hungary a recognition of the rights of these people—rights so misunderstood or ignored by the rest of Europe—was the mission of Count Zamoyski, and for which he was willing to confront new perils. The Russians, however, soon arrived, and, combining their armies with those of Austria and with the revolted Croats, Hungary was soon crushed. After the decisive defeat of Teneswar, the remnants of the Polish legion passed into Servia, and from thence to Turkey.
For two years he occupied himself here in disciplining those indomitable spirits for future contests; for to the honor of the Ottoman Porte be it recorded that it refused the demands of the Russian and Austrian governments for the extradition of the Polish and Hungarian refugees.
During a short revisit which he made to France, the Eastern question arose, and he immediately returned to Turkey. He took part, with the rank of general, in the campaign on the banks of the Danube, and through the entire Crimean war devoted his strength, his rare intelligence, his military experience, to forming regiments of Polish Cossacks, ostensibly for the service of the sultan, but indulging in the hope of seeing them ultimately admitted to the ranks of the allies.
In January, 1856, the preliminaries of the Peace of Paris came to dash aside once more his patriotic day-dreams, and to destroy every chance of resuscitation which had seemed offered to Poland in this rupture, so pompous but so fruitless, between France and England and Russia.