In return for these enormous concessions the partitioning powers presented the Poles with a constitution superior to anything they had ever been able to devise for themselves. The most mischievous of the ancient abuses, the elective monarchy and the liberum veto, were of course retained. Poland was to be dependent on her despoilers, but they evidently meant to make her a serviceable dependant. The government was henceforth to be in the hands of a rada nieustajaca, or permanent council of thirty-six members, eighteen senators and eighteen deputies, elected biennially by the sejm in secret ballot, subdivided into the five departments of foreign affairs, police, war, justice and the exchequer, whose principal members and assistants, as well as all other public functionaries, were to have fixed salaries. The royal prerogative was still further reduced. The king was indeed the president of the permanent council, but he could not summon the diet without its consent, and in all cases of preferment was bound to select one out of three of the council's nominees. The annual budget was fixed at 30,000,000 Polish gulden,[1] out of which a regular army of 30,000[2] men was to be maintained. Sentiment apart, the constitution of 1775 was of distinct benefit to Poland. It made for internal stability, order and economy, and enabled her to develop and husband her resources, and devote herself uninterruptedly to the now burning question of national education. For the shock of the first partition was so far salutary that it awoke the public conscience to a sense of the national inferiority, stimulated the younger generation to extraordinary patriotic efforts; and thus went far to produce the native reformers who were to do such wonders during the great quadrennial diet.
It was the second Turkish War of Catherine II. which gave patriotic Poland her last opportunity of re-establishing her independence. The death of Frederick the Great (Aug. 17, 1786) completely deranged the balance of power in Europe. The long standing accord between Prussia and Russia came to an end, and while the latter drew nearer to Austria, the former began to look to the Western powers. In August 1787 Russia and Austria provoked the Porte to declare war against them both, and two months later a defensive alliance was concluded between Prussia, England and Holland, as a counterpoise to the alarming preponderance of Russia. In June 1788 Gustavus III. of Sweden also attacked Russia, with 50,000 men, while in the south the Turks held the Muscovites at bay beneath the walls of Ochakov, and drove back the Austrian invaders into Transylvania. Prussia, emboldened by Russia's difficulties, now went so far as to invite Poland also to forsake the Russian alliance, and placed an army corps of 40,000 men at her disposal.
It was under these exceptional circumstances that the “four years' diet” assembled (Oct. 6, 1788). Its leaders Stanislaw Reform of the Constitution, 1788. Malachowski, Hugo Kollontaj and Ignaty Potocki, were men of character and capacity, and its measures were correspondingly vigorous. Within a few months of its assembling it had abolished the permanent council; enlarged the royal prerogative; raised the army to 65,000 men, established direct communications with the Western powers; rejected an alliance which Russia, alarmed at the rapid progress of events, had hastened to offer; declared its own session permanent; and finally settled down to the crucial task of reforming the constitution on modern lines. But the difficulties of the patriots were commensurate with their energies, and though the new constitution was drafted so early as December 1789, it was not till May 1791 that it could safely be presented to the diet. Meanwhile Poland endeavoured to strengthen her position by an advantageous alliance with Prussia. Frederick William II. stipulated, at first, that Poland should surrender Danzig and Thorn, and Pitt himself endeavoured to persuade the Polish minister Michal Kleophas Oginski (1765-1833) that the protection of Prussia was worth the sacrifice. But the Poles proving obstinate, and Austria simultaneously displaying a disquieting interest in the welfare of the Republic, Prussia, on the 20th of March 1791, concluded an alliance with Poland which engaged the two powers to guarantee each other's possessions and render mutual assistance in case either were attacked.
But external aid was useless so long as Poland was hampered by her anarchical constitution. Hitherto the proceedings of the diet had not been encouraging. The most indispensable reforms had been frantically opposed, the debate on the reorganization of the army had alone lasted six months. It was only by an audacious surprise that Kollontaj and his associates contrived to carry through the new constitution. Taking advantage of the Easter recess, when most of the malcontents were out of town, they suddenly, on the 3rd of May, brought the whole question before the diet and demanded urgency for it. Before the opposition could remonstrate, the marshal of the diet produced the latest foreign dispatches, which unanimously predicted another partition, whereupon, at the solemn adjuration of Ignaty Potocki, King Stanislaus exhorted the deputies to accept the new constitution as the last means of saving their country, and himself set the example by swearing to defend it.
The revolution of the 3rd of May 1791 converted Poland into an hereditary[3] limited monarchy, with ministerial responsibility and duennial parliaments. The liberum veto and all the intricate and obstructive machinery of the anomalous old system were for ever abolished. All invidious class distinctions were done away with. The franchise was extended to the towns. Serfdom was mitigated, preparatorily to its entire abolition; absolute religious toleration was established, and every citizen declared equal before the law. Frederick William II. officially congratulated Stanislaus on the success of “the happy revolution which has at last given Poland a wise and regular government,” and declared it should henceforth be his “chief care to maintain and confirm the ties which unite us.” Cobenzl, the Austrian minister at St Petersburg, writing to his court immediately after the reception of the tidings at the Russian capital, describes the empress as full of consternation at the idea that Poland under an hereditary dynasty might once more become a considerable power. But Catherine, still in difficulties, was obliged to watch in silence the collapse of her party in Poland, and submit to the double humiliation of recalling her ambassador and withdrawing her army from the country. Even when the peace of Jassy (Jan. 9, 1792) finally freed her from the Turk, she waited patiently for the Polish malcontents to afford her a pretext and an opportunity for direct and decisive interference. She had not long to wait. The constitution of the 3rd of May had scarce been signed when Felix Potocki, Severin Rzewuski and Xavier Branicki, three of the chief dignitaries of Poland, hastened to St Petersburg, and there entered into a secret convention with the empress, whereby she undertook to restore the old constitution by force of arms, but at the same time promised to respect the territorial integrity of the Republic. On the 14th of May 1792 the conspirators formed a confederation, consisting, in the first instance, of only ten other persons, at the little town of Targowica in the Ukraine, protesting against the constitution of the 3rd of May as tyrannous and revolutionary, and at the same time the new Russian minister at Warsaw presented a formal declaration of war to the king and the diet. The diet met the crisis with dignity and firmness. The army was at once dispatched to the frontier; the male population was called to arms, and Ignaty Potocki was sent to Berlin to claim the assistance stipulated by the treaty of the 19th of March 1791. The king of Prussia, in direct violation of all his oaths and promises, declined to defend a constitution which had never had his Russia overthrows the Constitution. “concurrence.” Thus Poland was left entirely to her own resources. The little Polish army of 46,000 men, under Prince Joseph Poniatowski and Tadeusz Kościuszko, did all that was possible under the circumstances. For more than three months they kept back the invader, and, after winning three pitched battles, retired in perfect order on the capital (see Poniatowski, and
