o, in the earlier days of
his reign, through the wild eccentricity that was more correctly
speaking madness, was not devoid of generous instincts; "but during my
mother's rule I could do nothing to help you. But I have now taken it as
the first duty of my sovereignty to confer freedom upon you. You are
therefore free."

Kosciuszko bowed and, after expressing his thanks, replied:

"Sire, I have never grieved for my own fate, but I shall never cease to
grieve over the fate of my country."

"Forget your country," said Paul. "The same lot has befallen her as so
many other states of which only the memory has remained in history; and
in that history you will always be gloriously remembered."

"Would rather that I should be forgotten," was Kosciuszko's reply, "and
my country remain free. Certainly many states have fallen, but there is
no example like the fall of Poland. ... It was in the very moment of her
uprising, just when she was desirous to attain liberty of rule,
precisely when she showed the greatest energy and patriotism, that
Poland fell."

"But confess," went on the Tsar, "that this freedom of yours did not
agree with the interests of the neighbouring states, and that your
countrymen themselves served as the instrument of the destruction of
their country."

"Excuse me, Your Imperial Majesty, from further explanations on that
point, for I can neither think nor speak without strong feeling about my
country's fall."

"You do not offend me," graciously replied Paul; "but on the contrary I
esteem you the more, for it is the first time that I have spoken to a
citizen whom I recognize as really loving his country. If at least the
greater part of the Poles thought as you do, Poland might still exist."

"Sire," said Kosciuszko, with deep emotion, "that greater part was
certainly there. If only Your Imperial Majesty could have been the
eyewitness of that virtue, that patriotism, of which they gave no common
proofs in the last Rising! I know how men tried to give Your Imperial
Majesty the falsest and worst ideas about our nation, because they
represented them in the eyes of the whole world as a horde of noisy
ruffians, intolerant of rule and law, and therefore unworthy of
existence. Virtuous and universal zeal only for the bettering of the
country's lot, for freedom from oppression and disorder, was called
sedition; the best desires of good citizenship were accounted as a
crime, and as the result of a brawling Jacobin