Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/949

had done with Poland as an adversary, and had no longer any reason to fear her ancient enemy.

Poland had, in fact, emerged from the cataclysm of 1648–1667 a moribund state, though her not unskilful diplomacy had enabled her for a time to save appearances. Her territorial losses, though considerable, were, in the circumstances, not excessive, and she was still a considerable power in the opinion of Europe. But a fatal change had come over the country during the age of the Vasas. We have already seen how the ambition of the oligarchs and the lawlessness of the szlachta had reduced the executive to impotence, and rendered anything like rational government impossible. But these demoralizing and disintegrating influences had been suspended by the religious revival due to the Catholic reaction and the Jesuit propaganda, a revival which reached its height towards the end of the 16th century. This, on the whole, salutary and edifying movement permeated public life, and produced a series of great captains who cheerfully sacrificed themselves for their country, and would have been saints if they had not been heroes. But this extraordinary religious revival had wellnigh spent itself by the middle of the 17th century. Its last manifestation was the successful defence of the monastery of Czenstochowa by Prior Kordecki against the finest troops in Europe, its last representative was Stephen Czarniecki, who brought the fugitive John Casimir back from exile and reinstalled him on his tottering throne. The succeeding age was an age of unmitigated egoism, Growing Corruption
in Poland. in which the old ideals were abandoned and the old examples were forgotten. It synchronized with, and was partly determined by, the new political system which was spreading all over Europe, the system of dynastic diplomatic competition and the unscrupulous employment of unlimited secret service funds. This system, which dates from Richelieu and culminated in the reign of Louis XIV., was based on the secular rivalry of the houses of Bourbon and Habsburg, and presently divided all Europe into two hostile camps. Louis XIV. is said to have expended 50,000,000 livres a year for bribing purposes, the court of Vienna was scarcely less liberal, and very soon nearly all the monarchs of the Continent and their ministers were in the pay of one or other of the antagonists. Poland was no exception to the general rule. Her magnates, having already got all they could out of their own country, looked eagerly abroad for fresh El Dorados. Before long most of them had become the hirelings of France or Austria, and the value demanded for their wages was, not infrequently, the betrayal of their own country. To do them justice, the szlachta at first were not only free from the taint of official corruption, but endeavoured to fight against it. Thus, at the election diet of 1669, one of the deputies, Pieniaszek, moved that a new and hitherto unheard-of clause should be inserted in the agenda of the general confederation, to the effect that every senator and deputy should solemnly swear not to take bribes, while another szlacic proposed that the ambassadors of foreign Powers should be excluded permanently from the Polish elective assemblies. But the flighty and ignorant szlachta not only were incapable of any sustained political action, but they themselves unconsciously played into the hands of the enemies of their country by making the so-called liberum veto an integral part of the Polish constitution. The liberum veto was based on the assumption of the absolute political equality of every Polish gentleman, with the inevitable corollary that every measure introduced into the Polish diet must be adopted unanimously. Consequently, if any single deputy believed that a measure already approved of by the rest of the house might be injurious to his constituency, he had the right to rise and exclaim nie pozwalam, “I disapprove,” when the measure in question fell at once to the ground. Subsequently this vicious principle was extended still further. A deputy, by interposing his individual veto, could at any time dissolve the diet, when all measures previously passed had to be re-submitted to the consideration of the following diet. The liberum veto seems to have been originally devised to cut short interminable debates in times of acute crisis, but it was generally used either by highly placed criminals, anxious to avoid an inquiry into their misdeeds,^[1] or by malcontents, desirous of embarrassing the executive. The origin of the liberum veto is obscure, but it was first employed by the deputy Władisłaus Siciński, who dissolved the diet of 1652 by means of it, and before the end of the 17th century it was used so frequently and recklessly that all business was frequently brought to a standstill. In later days it became the chief instrument of foreign ambassadors for dissolving inconvenient diets, as a deputy could always be bribed to exercise his veto for a handsome consideration.

The Polish crown first became an object of universal competition in 1573, when Henry of Valois was elected. In 1575, and again in 1587, it was put up for public auction, when the Hungarian Báthory and the Swede Sigismund respectively gained the prize. But at all three elections, though money and intrigue were freely employed, they were not the determining factors of the contest. The Polish gentry were still the umpires as well as the stake-holders; the best candidates generally won the day; and the defeated competitors were driven out of the Election of Michael Wiśniowiecki, 1669–1673. country by force of arms if they did not take their discomfiture, after a fair fight, like sportsmen. But with the election of Michael Wiśniowiecki in 1669 a new era began. In this case a native Pole was freely elected by the unanimous vote of his countrymen. Yet a few weeks later the Polish commander-in-chief formed a whole series of conspiracies for the purpose of dethroning his lawful sovereign, and openly placed himself beneath the protection of Louis XIV. of France, just as the rebels of the 18th century placed themselves under the protection of Catherine II. of Russia. And this rebel was none other than John Sobieski, at a later day the heroic deliverer of Vienna! If heroes could so debase themselves, can we wonder if men who were not heroes lent themselves to every sort of villainy? We have come, in fact, to the age of utter shamelessness, when disappointed place-hunters openly invoked foreign aid against their own country. Sobieski himself, as John III. (he succeeded Michael in 1674), was to pay the penalty of his past lawlessness, to the uttermost farthing. Despite his brilliant military achievements (see John III. Sobieski, 1674–1696. John III., King of Poland), his reign of twenty-two years was a failure. His victories over the Turks were fruitless so far as Poland was concerned. His belated attempts to reform the constitution only led to conspiracies against his life and crown, in which the French faction, which he had been the first to encourage, took an active part. In his later years Lithuania was in a state of chronic revolt, while Poland was bankrupt both morally and materially. He died a broken-hearted man, prophesying the inevitable ruin of a nation which he himself had done so much to demoralize.

It scarcely seemed possible for Poland to sink lower than she had sunk already. Yet an era was now to follow, compared with which even the age of Sobieski seemed to be an age of gold. This was the Saxon period which, with occasional violent interruptions, was to drag on for nearly seventy years. By the time it was over Poland was irretrievably doomed. It only remained to be seen how that doom would be accomplished.

On the death of John III. no fewer than eighteen candidates for the vacant Polish throne presented themselves. Austria supported James Sobieski, the eldest son of the late king, France Francis Louis Prince of Conti (1664–1709), but the successful competitor was Frederick Augustus, elector of Saxony, who cheerfully renounced Augustus II., 1697–1704. Lutheranism for the coveted crown, and won the day because he happened to arrive last of all, with fresh funds, when the agents of his rivals had spent all their money. He was crowned, as Augustus II., on the 15th of September 1697, and his first act was to expel from the country the prince of Conti, the elect of a respectable minority, directed by the cardinal primate Michal Radziejowski (1645–1705), whom Augustus II. subsequently bought over for 75,000 thalers.