his "remote corner" of the world to lay three requests before him. The first was that Alexander should proclaim a general amnesty for the Poles in his dominions and that the Polish peasants, dispersed in foreign countries, should be considered not serfs, but free men, on their return to Poland; the second, that Alexander should proclaim himself king of a free Poland, to be ruled by a constitution on the pattern of England's, and that schools for the peasantry should be opened at the cost of the state as the certain means of ensuring to them their liberty. "If," he added, "my requests are granted, I will come in person, although sick, to cast myself at the feet of Your Imperial Majesty to thank you and to render you homage as to my sovereign. If my feeble talents can still be good for anything, I will immediately set out to rejoin my fellow-citizens so as to serve my country and my sovereign honourably and faithfully."[1]
He then asks a private favour—not for himself: that Zeltner, who had a large family to support and whom Kościuszko was too poor to help, might be given some post in the new French government, or in Poland.
He received no answer; and so came into Paris and obtained an audience. Alexander greeted him as an honoured friend, and bade him be assured of his good intentions towards Poland. A stream of visits and receptions then set in, at which Kościuszko was the recipient of public marks of esteem, not only from the Tsar, but from his brother, the Grand Duke Constantine, whose ill-omened name
- ↑ d'Angeberg, Recueil des Traités, Conventions et Actes Diplomatiques concernant la Pologne, 1762-1862. Paris, 1862.
