220 VARSOVIE
limited to an advisory role. An independent judiciary was to operate the Code
Napoleon. Polish was to be the official language of government.
Under this system, with an absentee monarch, the President of the Council of
State, the enlightened Stanislaw Kostka Potocki (1755-1821), and his five nom-
inated colleagues possessed considerable freedom of manoeuvre. The policies of
its dominant personalities - Poniatowski at the Department of War, Stanislaw
Breza (1752-1847), and above all Count Feliks Lubieriski (1758-1848), the
Director of Justice, were limited less by the formal constitution than by the con-
tinuing presence in Warsaw of Marshal Davout with 30,000 Saxons, and by the
watchful care of the French Residents - Etienne Vincent, Jean Serra, Louis
Bignon, and from 1809, the meddlesome Archbishop Dominique de Pradt.
In the social sphere, the Constitution introduced radical changes. Article 4,
which made the statement that 'all citizens are equal before the law', overturned
the ancient system of estates at a stroke. Four simple words - 'L'esclavage est
aboli' - put an end to serfdom as a legal institution. Yet much confusion ensued.
The legal privileges of the nobility were not specifically rescinded, and their
social supremacy was not immediately affected. In the short term, the predica-
ment of the peasantry actually deteriorated. Despite the Land Decrees of 21
December 1807, which regulated the relationship between landlord and tenant,
the security of the ex-serf had been much diminished. It was small comfort to
know that he could now sign a new contract with his former master, or even
challenge his master in court, if by so doing he risked summary eviction with the
loss of home, land, and employment. For the time being, the newly freed peas-
ants had nowhere to go but the army.
Religious emancipation proved equally illusory. The Constitution retained
Roman Catholicism as the religion of state. Two decree's of 1808 on Jewish
Disabilities suspended full civil rights for the Jews pending greater assimilation.
The true purposes of the Duchy were best revealed in the military and finan-
cial spheres. Whatever gestures were made to 'Liberte', 'Egalite', or even
'Fraternite', there is little doubt that the Duchy was intended to raise the maxi-
mum of men and money for the benefit of the Napoleonic Empire as a whole. In
1808, general conscription was introduced. All men between 20 and 28 were
called to arms for six years' service. The army, which was gradually expanded
from 30,000 men in 1808 to over 100,000 in 1812, consumed over two-thirds of
the state's revenue. Lavish gifts of land and property were distributed among the
commanding generals, whilst gangs of forced labourers toiled to improve mili-
tary installations. Twenty thousand peasants were mobilized to rebuild the
fortress of Modlin. In 1812, the number of troops quartered in Poland at the
Duchy's expense reached almost a million. In return for his Polish uniform, the
citizen was taxed with Prussian thoroughness, treated with Russian indiffer-
ence, and was expected to lay down his life for the French Emperor on the orders
of a German King.
Nothing was more symptomatic of Napoleon'sexploitation of the Duchy
than the shocking fraud of the 'Bayonne Sums'. According to a convention