hoped, Chinese the English. Poland
ought to have Polonized Russia. Poniatowski tried to do so in the
least favorable portion of the empire; but as a king he was little
understood,--because, possibly, he did not fully understand himself.

But how could the Parisians avoid disliking an unfortunate people who
were the cause of that shameful falsehood enacted during the famous
review at which all Paris declared its will to succor Poland? The Poles
were held up to them as the allies of the republican party, and they
never once remembered that Poland was a republic of aristocrats. From
that day forth the bourgeoisie treated with base contempt the exiles of
the nation it had worshipped a few days earlier. The wind of a riot
is always enough to veer the Parisians from north to south under any
regime. It is necessary to remember these sudden fluctuations of feeling
in order to understand why it was that in 1835 the word "Pole" conveyed
a derisive meaning to a people who consider themselves the wittiest and
most courteous nation on earth, and their city of Paris the focus of
enlightenment, with the sceptre of arts and literature within its grasp.

There are, alas! two sorts of Polish exiles,--the republican Poles,
sons of Lelewel, and the noble Poles, at the head of whom is Prince Adam
Czartoryski. The two classes are like fire and water; but why complain
of that? Such divisions are always to be found among exiles, no matter
of what nation they may be, or in what countries they take refuge. They
carry their countries and their hatreds with them. Two French priests,
who had emigrated to Brussels during the Revolution, showed the utmost
horror of each other, and when one of them was asked why, he replied
with a glance at his companion in misery: "Why? because he's a
Jansenist!" Dante would gladly have stabbed a Guelf had he met him in
exile. This explains the virulent attacks of the French against the
venerable Prince Adam Czartoryski, and the dislike shown to the better
class of Polish exiles by the shopkeeping Caesars and the licensed
Alexanders of Paris.

In 1834, therefore, Adam Mitgislas Laginski was something of a butt for
Parisian pleasantry.

"He is rather nice, though he is a Pole," said Rastignac.

"All these Poles pretend to be great lords," said Maxime de Trailles,
"but this one does pay his gambling debts, and I begin to think he must
have property."

Without wishing to offend these banished men, it may be allow