was to
confer with the various foreign ambassadors and with Dombrowski's
adjutant, Dombrowski being in Italy. He then definitely broke the bond
between himself and Paul I. He returned the money received from the Tsar
with the following letter:--

"I am profiting by the first moment of liberty which I am enjoying under
the fostering laws of the greatest and noblest of nations to send you
back a gift, to the acceptance of which I was forced by the
manifestations of your benevolence and the merciless proceedings of your
ministers. If I agreed to accept it, let Your Majesty ascribe this only
to the unconquerable strength of the attachment which I bear to my
compatriots, the companions of my misfortunes, as well as to my hopes of
still serving my country. It seemed to me that my unhappy condition
moved your heart, but your ministers and their satellites did not
proceed with me according to your wishes. Therefore, since they have
dared to ascribe to my free resolution an act to which they forced me, I
will disclose their violence and perfidy before you and before all men
who know the worth of honour, and may they only be answerable before
you, Sire, for the proclamation of their unworthy conduct."[1]

[Footnote 1: T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_.]

At the same time that Kosciuszko forwarded this letter to the Tsar he
published it in two French papers. The Tsar's reply was to return the
sum through the Russian ambassador in Vienna, with the remark that he
would "accept nothing from traitors." It lay untouched in an English
bank till Kosciuszko's death.

Even before the repudiation of Kosciuszko's oath reached Petersburg the
fact of his arrival in France had roused the wrath of Paul's envoy in
Berlin, who deliberated with the Prussian ministers how to impede "the
criminal intentions of the chief perpetrator and instigator of the
revolution in Poland." Kosciuszko's instant arrest was decreed, should
he ever be seen within the boundaries of Russia's domination, and any
one who entered into relations with him there was branded as a traitor.
Austria and Prussia followed suit. Thus was Kosciuszko's return to his
own country barred before him.

Closely watched by Russian and Prussian spies, who communicated, often
erroneously, to their respective governments the movements of "that
adventurer," as one of them styles him, Kosciuszko had his headquarters
in Paris. He was there when Kniaziewicz, fresh from the triumphs of the
legions in It