his voice faltering, "what my benefactors have made of me. I command
those troops amongst whom it was once my greatest pride to be a
private soldier."

Thaddeus pressed the hand of the veteran between both his, and
regarded him with respect and affection, whilst the grateful old man
wiped away a gliding tear from his face. [Footnote: Lukawski and
Strawenski were afterwards both taken, with others of the
conspirators. At the king's entreaty, those of inferior rank were
pardoned after condemnation; but the two noblemen who had deluded
them were beheaded. Pulaski, the prime ring-leader, escaped, to the
wretched life of an outlaw and an exile, and finally died in America,
in 1779.]

"How happy it ought to make you, my son," observed Sobieski, "that
you are called out to support such a sovereign! He is not merely a
brave king, whom you would follow to battle, because he will lead you
to honor; the hearts of his people acknowledge him in a superior
light; they look on him as their patriarchal head, as being delegated
of God to study what is their greatest good, to bestow it, and when
it is attacked, to de-fend it. To preserve the life of such a
sovereign, who would not sacrifice his own?"

"Yes," cried Butzou; "and how ought we to abhor those who threaten
his life! How ought we to estimate those crowned heads who, under the
mask of amity, have from the year sixty-four, when he ascended the
throne, until now, been plotting his overthrow or death! Either
calamity, O Heaven, avert! for his death, I fear, will be a prelude
to the certain ruin of our country."