504 Chapter XX
Polish patriots, after Kosciuszko’s defeat, scattered in a diaspora into many
countries. Thousands went to France and Italy, where they formed a Polish Legion
that was attached to the French army. Other thousands took refuge in the Ruma-
nian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. They sought Turkish and French
aid for an armed return to Poland. The French sent a special agent to Wallachia
and Moldavia, a Greek named Constantine Stamati, who like Korais had come to
France as a medical student and become infused with the spirit of the Revolution.
Stamati wrote pamphlets to arouse the Greeks to revolution, and also worked with
the Poles, hoping that a great Polish revival would undermine the Hapsburg gov-
ernment, with which France was still at war.^49
The Polish exiles in Paris, having in mind their armed countrymen in Italy and
Wallacho- Moldavia, submitted an ambitious proposal to the Directory in April
- Not only, they argued, would the restoration of Poland be of strategic value
to France, but “the evident protection which France is giving to the newly born
republics in Italy suggests that, if the Carinthians, Croatians, Slavonians, Hungar-
ians, and Galicians will only follow the example of the Lombards in throwing off
the yoke of the House of Austria, their insurrections will suit the French system of
government in many ways.”^50 When Bonaparte invaded the Austrian empire from
Venetia, Dumbrowski, the commander of the Polish Legion, was with him, urging
him to cut through the Hapsburg dominions, rekindle the embers of revolution in
Hungary, join with the Poles on the lower Danube, crush the Hapsburgs, and re-
store Poland.
Bonaparte, however, signed a truce with Austria at Leoben. So the dream of
revolution in Eastern Europe faded away.
(Paris, 1937), id., Les oeuvres de Rhigas Velestinlis (Paris, 1937). On Rhigas’ proposed constitution see
also Chapter X XVI below.
49 On the Poles: L. Chodzko, Histoire des légions polonaises en Italie sous le commandement du général
Dumbrowski, 2 vols. (Paris, 1829); M. Oginski, Mémoires, 4 vols. (Paris, 1826–1827). On Stamati as a
Greek patriot and as a French agent, J. Lair and E. Legrand, Correspondances de Paris, Vienne, Berlin,
Varsovie, Constantinople (Paris, 1872); Descalakis, Rhigas; E. Lebel, La France et les principautés danu-
biennes du 16e siècle à la chute de Napoléon I (Paris, 1955).
50 Chodzko, II, 331–34; Angeberg [i.e., Chodzko], Recueil, 424.