sparing in the application of the cat. A strict injunction was
laid on all to appear in good clothes. As to the other servants
of the castle, the authoress thought she would find it difficult
to specify them; indeed, did not know even the number of their
musicians, cooks, Heyducs, Cossacks, and serving maids and men.
She knew, however, that every day five tables were served, and
that from morning to night two persons were occupied in
distributing the things necessary for the kitchen. More
impressive even than a circumstantial account like this are
briefly-stated facts such as the following: that the Palatine
Stanislas Jablonowski kept a retinue of 2,300 soldiers and 4,000
courtiers, valets, armed attendants, huntsmen, falconers,
fishers, musicians, and actors; and that Janusz, Prince of
Ostrog, left at his death a majorat of eighty towns and boroughs,
and 2,760 villages, without counting the towns and villages of
his starosties. The magnates who distinguished themselves during
the reign of Stanislas Augustus (1764--1795) by the brilliance
and magnificence of their courts were the Princes Czartoryski and
Radziwill, Count Potocki, and Bishop Soltyk of Cracovia. Our
often-quoted English traveller informs us that the revenue of
Prince Czartoryski amounted to nearly 100,000 pounds per annum,
and that his style of living corresponded with this income. The
Prince kept an open table at which there rarely sat down less
than from twenty to thirty persons. [FOOTNOTE: Another authority
informs us that on great occasions the Czartoryskis received at
their table more than twenty thousand persons.] The same
informant has much to say about the elegance and luxury of the
Polish nobility in their houses and villas, in the decoration and
furniture of which he found the French and English styles happily
blended. He gives a glowing account of the fetes at which he was