THE NOBLE DEMOCRACY 281... Not only has the Empress of Russia established universal toleration in her own vast
realms, but she has sent an Army into Poland to protect the rights of citizens and to cause
fear and trembling among the persecutors. It is the first Army of its kind since the world
began—an army of peace! O wise and just King who has presided over this happy rec-
onciliation! O enlightened Primate, prince without pride, priest without superstition,
may you be blessed and emulated for ever and ever!^30
In such an atmosphere, it was a bold spirit indeed who dared to say anything
favourable of the Polish constitution. Even the apologists of the Leszczynski
camp, and the proponents of Reform, from Baudeau to Mably, were given to
blackwashing Poland in the hope of provoking change. But Jean-Jacques
Rousseau was different. Invited to pen his reflections on the Polish situation by
Wielhorski, the agent in Paris of the Confederates of Bar, he expressed a view
which was unique in its day. His Considerations sur le gouvernement de la
Pologne, published in 1772 in the year of the First Partition, mark a triumph at
once of independence of mind and of careful scholarship. Rousseau had stu-
died Polish institutions with some care, and was not averse to detailed
improvements. But he recognized prevailing conditions as a perversion of wor-
thy ideals, and the general tenor was one of caution. Think very carefully', he
warned, 'before you disturb that which has made you what you are.' Finally,
fully conversant with the intrigues of the Republic's neighbours, he proffered
perhaps the most pertinent piece of advice on the Polish condition ever made
in modern times. 'If you cannot prevent your enemies from swallowing you
whole,' he wrote, 'at least you must do what you can to prevent them
from digesting you.' This one sentence was heeded in Poland long after the
cumulative wisdom of all the other philosophes had been completely forgot-
ten.^31
For the political scientist, the Kzeczpospolita of Poland-Lithuania displays a
number of features which distinguish it from most West European polities of the
period. In theoretical terms, the state can better be described as a monarchical
republic rather than as a republican monarchy. It was far more republican in
structure and spirit than the constitutional monarchies of England or Sweden,
and diametrically opposed to the absolutist systems of France, Spain, or Russia.
In some respects, it resembled the fragmented and elective structures of the Holy
Roman Empire, shorn of the dynastic accretions introduced by the later
Habsburg Emperors; and it had much in common with the complicated consti-
tution of the United Provinces. But its authors were specifically inspired by the
Roman Republic of ancient times, from which it took its name, and by the
Republic of Venice, from whose university at Padua, most of them had gradu-
ated. In this light, it would seem appropriate that in translating the name of the
Kzeczpospolita into English, Anglo-Saxon scholars should prefer 'the Republic'
to the more usual 'Commonwealth'.