able to
remark that the light-hearted, careless inconsistency of the Sarmatian
character does justify in some degree the satire of the Parisians, who,
by the bye, would behave in like circumstances exactly as the Poles do.
The French aristocracy, so nobly succored during the Revolution by the
Polish lords, certainly did not return the kindness in 1832. Let us
have the melancholy courage to admit this, and to say that the faubourg
Saint-Germain is still the debtor of Poland.

Was Comte Adam rich, or was he poor, or was he an adventurer?
This problem was long unsolved. The diplomatic salons, faithful to
instructions, imitated the silence of the Emperor Nicholas, who held
that all Polish exiles were virtually dead and buried. The court of the
Tuileries, and all who took their cue from it, gave striking proof of
the political quality which was then dignified by the name of sagacity.
They turned their backs on a Russian prince with whom they had all been
on intimate terms during the Emigration, merely because it was said that
the Emperor Nicholas gave him the cold shoulder. Between the caution
of the court and the prudence of the diplomates, the Polish exiles of
distinction lived in Paris in the Biblical solitude of "super flumina
Babylonis," or else they haunted a few salons which were the neutral
ground of all opinions. In a city of pleasure, like Paris, where
amusements abound on all sides, the heedless gayety of a Pole finds
twice as many encouragements as it needs to a life of dissipation.

It must be said, however, that Adam had two points against him,--his
appearance, and his mental equipment. There are two species of Pole, as
there are two species of Englishwoman. When an Englishwoman is not
very handsome she is horribly ugly. Comte Adam belonged in the second
category of human beings. His small face, rather sharp in expression,
looked as if it had been pressed in a vise. His short nose, and fair
hair, and reddish beard and moustache made him look all the more like a
goat because he was small and thin, and his tarnished yellow eyes caught
you with that oblique look which Virgil celebrates. How came he, in
spite of such obvious disadvantages, to possess really exquisite manners
and a distinguished air? The problem is solved partly by the care and
elegance of his dress, and partly by the training given him by his
mother, a Radziwill. His courage amounted to daring, but his mind
was not more than was needed for the eph