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 allowable 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