408 AGON1A
The end of the Rising produced a number of lapidary and apoch-
ryphal remarks. On completing his task, Suvorov sent a three-word report to
the Empress: 'Hurrah—Praga-Suvorov'. He received the reply: 'Bravo-
Feldmarschal—Catherine'. On falling from his horse at Maciejowice, at the
moment when Freedom is said to have 'shrieked', Kosciuszko was wrongly
reported to have uttered the words 'FINIS POLONIAE' (This is the end of
Poland').
But it was the end of Poland. On this occasion the legalities were slightly cur-
tailed. Once the Russian Army had suppressed the Insurrectionary Government,
and deported the King, there was no Polish authority with whom the Third
Partition might have been negotiated. In any case, there was no point in seeking
Polish approval for an act which was to abolish the Polish state completely.
Everything proceeded on the understanding that the Poles and their Republic no
longer existed and that no expression of consent was necessary. In 1795, eager
to forestall their exclusion from the spoils two years earlier, the Austrians occu-
pied a huge area round Cracow and named it 'New Galicia'. The Prussians
replaced the Russians in Warsaw, and named their acquisition 'New South
Prussia'. The Russians contented themselves with a slice of the eastern borders
greater than the Austrian and Prussian gains put together (see Diagram M). On
25 November 1795, in his exile in Grodno, Stanislaw-August abdicated. The
final Treaty of Partition, signed in St. Petersburg by Russia, Prussia, and Austria
on 15/26 January 1797, appeared as a simple act of territorial delimitation. A
secret and separate article provided for the permanent suppression of the name
of Poland:
In view of the necessity to abolish everything which could revive the memory of the exist-
ence of the Kingdom of Poland, now that the annulment of this body politic has been
effected ... the high contracting parties are agreed and undertake never to include in their
titles... the name or designation of the Kingdom of Poland, which shall remain sup-
pressed as from the present and forever...^32The death-throes of Poland-Lithuania caused little comment on the inter-
national scene. The eyes of Europe's statesmen were fixed on France. At a time
when the revolutionary armies had overrun Belgium, Holland, and the
Rhineland, and were advancing into Piedmont, Catalonia, and Spanish Galicia,
no thought could be spared for a country whose extinction was a foregone con-
clusion. Only a handful of foreign representatives stayed in Warsaw to observe
the last rites, for by 1794 the Most Serene Republic had passed beyond the min-
istration of diplomacy.
Sensing their predicament, the diplomats left Warsaw one by one, like the
players of Haydn's 'Farewell' Symphony — gathering up their scores, snuffing
out their candles, and tiptoeing off the stage. The last ambassador of the King