Poland were both right,--one to wish the unity of its empire, the
other to desire its liberty. Let us say in passing that Poland might
have conquered Russia by the influence of her morals instead of
fighting her with weapons; she should have imitated China which, in
the end, Chinesed the Tartars, and will, it is to be 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