Victories of the Counter-Revolution 485
lies that enjoyed noble status, but owned no land. Army officers, government em-
ployees, lawyers, university people, and others of the professions and the intelligen-
tsia were overwhelmingly of this noble class, and many were “Jacobins” in 1794.
Burghers were less numerous in Poland, and not all burghers in the Polish cities
were actually Poles; but the Polish bourgeoisie had received important advantages
from the Statute of Cities of 1791, which was part of the Constitution of the Third
of May, so that the extinction of these gains, in the reaction of 1792 and 1793, left
many burghers in a belligerent and angry mood, in which an aggressive Jacobinism
was easily generated. The working classes took part only sporadically. On several
occasions, in Warsaw, artisans, journeymen, and small shopkeepers demonstrated
or fought in the streets, but they neither developed the organized means of action,
nor enjoyed the sustained influence of the French sans- culottes whom as a class
they resembled. The peasants contributed no initiatives of their own. We are
warned by Lesnodorski against recent tendencies to exaggerate the plebeian ele-
ment in Polish Jacobinism.^18
After the Warsaw uprising a club was formed in the city, whose official name
was Citizens Offering Aid and Service to the National Magistrates for the Wel-
fare of the Country. Composed of leading patriots in the capital, it revived the club
that had been active in 1791 and had disappeared in 1792–1793. It was, in fact, the
“Jacobin” club, consciously modeling itself on the club in Paris which was then at
its height. It conceived its function to be the surveillance of the new government,
and the stimulation of political interest among the people. Moderate patriots
feared that the club, by seeking retribution against Targowicans and traitors, would
sow division among those now willing to fight against Russia. The king asked Kos-
ciuszko, as recognized dictator, to disband it. It is significant that Kosciuszko con-
cluded that he could not do so, that no dampening of the most ardent spirits was
advisable in the circumstances, that what the country needed was precisely the
excitement and determination that the club attempted to arouse.^19
The abundant symbolism of the movement gives evidence of its numerical
strength, of the emotional force behind it, and of its affinity to the upheaval in
Western Europe. Altars of the fatherland were built, Phrygian caps were worn, and
the all- seeing eye of Providence was represented in pictures. Civic hymns were
composed and sung. There were new military and marching songs, but the present
Polish national anthem, as will be seen, appeared two years later among the Polish
Legion in Italy. The Marseillaise and the Ça ira were translated. Prints and carica-
tures likewise carried the message to those unable to read. In recent years a good
deal of Polish Jacobin poetry has been rediscovered, published, commented on, and
admired at least for its political content. One such poem, a Catechism of Man, ex-
pressed the attitude both to France and to the revolutionary triad:
France is our example,
France will be our help;
Let cries of Liberty and Equality18 Lesnodorski, 27.
19 Ibid., 165–81.