the Rising. "So the love of your country has to
content itself with enthusiasm without deed, with fruitless desires,
with the sufferings of a weakness which cannot take a bold step! Believe
me, the first one among you who proclaims the watchword of the
deliverance of our country, and courageously gives the example of
himself, will experience how easy it is to awaken in men courage and
determination when an aim deserving of respect and instigations to
virtue only are placed before them. Compatriots! This is not now the
time to guard formalities and to approach the work of the national
Rising with a lagging step. To arms, Poles, to arms! God has already
blessed the Polish weapons, and His powerful Providence has manifested
in what manner this country must be freed from the enemy, how to be free
and independent depends only on our will. Unite, then, all your efforts
to a universal arming. Who is not with us is against us. I have believed
that no Pole will be in that case. If that hope deceives me, and there
are found men who would basely deny their country, the country will
disown them and will give them over to the national vengeance, to their
own shame and severe responsibility."[1]

This language ran like a fiery arrow through the province: it rose. On
all sides the country rose. Kosciuszko's envoy carried to one of the
Polish officers in Warsaw the terse message: "You have a heart and
virtue. Stand at the head of the work. The country will perish by delay.
Begin, and you will not repent it. T. Kosciuszko."[2] By the time this
letter reached its destination Warsaw had already risen."

[Footnote 1: K. Bartoszewicz, _History of Kosciuszko's Insurrection_.]

[Footnote 2: T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_.]

For weeks the preparation for the Rising in Warsaw had been stealthily
carried forward. Igelstrom had conceived the plan of surrounding the
churches by Russian soldiers on Holy Saturday, disarming what was left
of the Polish army in the town, and taking over the arsenal. The secret
was let out too soon by a drunken Russian officer, and the Polish
patriots, headed by the shoemaker Kilinski, gave the signal. Two
thousand, three hundred and forty Poles flew to arms against nine
thousand Russian soldiers. Then ensued the terrible street fighting, in
which Kilinski was seen at every spot where the fire was hottest. Each
span of earth, in the graphic phrase of a Polish historian, became a
battlefield.[3] Through Maundy Thursday and