482 Chapter XX
continuing revolution in Poland, and the French declaration of war upon Austria
were supposed to be evidence. It was reported also that a Frenchman was heading
for St. Petersburg with designs on the “health” of the empress.^12 It was at this time
that Catherine II sent her army into Poland. She “would fight Jacobinism and beat
it in Poland,” according to her own comment to Baron Grimm.^13 The ensuing
Second Partition, and the replacement of the Polish constitution of 1791 by the
counter- revolutionary constitution of 1793, have been described.
Poland, however, continued to be a center of infection from the point of view of
East European conservatism. Indeed, what is generally called the “insurrection” led
by Kosciuszko, in 1794, threatened to become more of a “revolution” than anything
that Eastern Europe had thus far seen.
The Dutch Revolution of 1794–
After the Second Partition the core of the old Poland, a region extending several
hundred miles east from Warsaw and Cracow, was still left in existence as a sup-
posedly independent state. Internally it was dominated by the counter-
revolutionary party of Targowican Poles. The Russian army remained in occupa-
tion at Warsaw under General Ingelström. The new Poland was bound to Russia
by a new treaty, which gave the right of entry to Russian troops, and allowed the
Russian Empress “any degree of useful influence” that she might require.^14
The treaty in a rough way resembled the agreements demanded by the French
from their satellite republics after 1795. There was a significant difference in the
relationship, however, suggesting a difference in the confidence felt by the greater
power in its adherents. The French repeatedly urged the Batavian, the Cisalpine,
and the Helvetic republics to maintain armed forces of their own. The Russians
immediately began to impose a reduction of the Polish army. Even the Targowi-
cans, the original pro- Russian group, objected to the new situation. They had an-
12 Shtrange, 125ff. It is a matter for conjecture why Shtrange, in describing this scare of April and
May 1792, refrains from observing that it was exactly simultaneous with the Russian invasion of
Poland.
13 Quoted by Lesnodorski, Pologne au Xe Congrès, 216.
14 The treaty is printed in Comte d’Angeberg (pseud. for L. Chodzko), Recueil des traités, conven-
tions et actes diplomatiques concernant la Pologne, 1762–1862 (Paris, 1862), 347–53. This collection is
valuable also for including documents of importance for internal Polish affairs. See also the twenty-
four documents printed as an appendix to Zajazek, Histoire de la Révolution de Pologne par un témoin
oculaire (Paris, 1797). Zajazek (pseud, for Zajoncek) was one of Kosciuszko’s chief military subordi-
nates, and was a general in the French army from 1797 to 1814; he served under Bonaparte in Italy and
in Egypt and was wounded at Smolensk and at the Beresina in 1812. The present section draws mainly
on the important book of B. Lesnodorski, Polscy Jakobini (Warsaw, 1960), summarized in detail for me
by Mr. André Michalski, and also on H. de Montfort, Le drame de la Pologne: Kosciuszko, 1764–1817
(Paris, 1945). See also J. Grossbart, “La presse polonaise et la Révolution française,” in AHRF (1937),
127–50, 241–56; (1938), 234–66. Many documents of the insurrection of 1794 have been published by
the Polish Academy of Sciences, unfortunately for foreigners all in Polish: Akty Powstania Kosciuszkiy,
3 vols. (Cracow, 1918–1955). A recent historiographical survey of the whole period 1764–1795 is avail-
able in French: B. Lesnodorski, “Le siècle des lumières en Pólógne: l’état des recherches dans le do-
maine de l’histoire politique, des institutions et des idées,” in Acta Poloniae historica, IV (1961),
147–74.