than at home; it shone at foreign courts, but was hardly ever exhibited at Warsaw, and throughout the whole extent of the kingdom. It was only under the reign of Stanislaus Poniatowsky, that the Order apparently received a more solid footing, when it had only to contend against the antipathy of the old aristocracy, while the lavish and scandalous abuse in the distribution of the decoration was but ill calculated to weaken the prejudice against it.
After the division of Poland, in 1795, the Order like the kingdom itself, was nigh extinction, none of the three conquerors having thought proper to accept it with their respective shares of the territory. In this passive state, it remained until 1807, when the Constitutional decree of the Duchy of Warsaw, which was issued on the 21st July, proclaimed the restoration, at the same time, of the ancient Orders of Poland. Frederick Augustus, King of Saxony, declared himself Grand Master, but was subsequently superseded in that dignity, by the Emperor Alexander of Russia.
The Revolution of 1831 having annihilated the last vestige of Poland's independence and constitution, her Orders were united with those of Russia, and the 'White Eagle' with altered insignia (Tab. IV. Nos. 17 and 18), occupies now the rank next to the 'Alexander Newsky.' It has at present only one class.
The diploma of presentation is always signed by the Czar himself, and written for Russians in the Russian language, and for Poles in both Polish and Russian. But as all the Russian Orders are placed under the patronage of saints, the White Eagle is usually conferred on non-christians, such as the Shah of Persia, and other eastern Princes.
An ukase of the 29th March, 1835, ordered, that all those Knights who are in possession of the decorations of Alexander Newsky, White Eagle, St. Stanislaus, and St. Ann first class, should wear round the neck the Polish cross, at the side of the Russian.
The entrance fee of the Order is 150 roubles.
