310 SERENISSIMA
policy, each interest within the country developed its own diplomacy. The
Protestant churches, for example, had their own contacts with the Protestant
powers. The Jews of the Republic sent their own representatives abroad. Above
all, the great magnates established private policies. In 1758, when Stanislaw-
August Poniatowski reported in St. Petersburg as Ambassador of
Poland-Lithuania, it was no secret that he was appointed to pursue the designs
of his Czartoryski relations in conjunction with their Russian patrons. By the
time Augustus III died in 1763, there was little scope left for foreign intrigues.
The pantomimes of previous elections were not repeated. The French ambas-
sador, the Marquis de Paulmy, embarrassed by disasters during the Seven Years
War, could not emulate the Marquis de Monti who in pursuit of 'le secret du
Roi' had turned the electoral contest of 1733 into an auction.^30 In 1764, Russian
bayonets lined the electoral field; the opposition candidates withdrew; and all
unseemly disturbances were avoided.
Stanislaw-August had returned to Poland from his Russian embassy as the
Empress's king-designate. His subsequent reign (1764-95) witnessed a long, but
in the end, vain struggle to escape from Russian tutelage. In 1766, the Sejm
approved a budget for diplomatic expenses, which in 1768 rose to a grant of 1 mil-
lion zl. Polish ambassadors reappeared in the capitals of Europe. During the wars
of the Confederation of Bar, they sought assistance for both sides in the conflict.
In London, Tadeusz Burzynski, Marshal of the Lithuanian Tribunal, acting on
behalf of the King, tried to persuade the British Government to mediate. In Paris,
Michal Wielhorski courted French support for the Confederates, establishing
contacts in French intellectual circles with figures like Mably and Rousseau, who
were to furnish the main flow of information and opinion about Poland during
the Enlightenment. In effect, divided counsels obstructed any concerted resistance
to Russian intervention or to the First Partition of 1772. In 1775, however, the
germ of a Foreign Ministry was planted as the 'Departament Interesow
Cudzoziemskich' (Department of Foreign Affairs), attached to the Permanent
Council. Like all institutions created during this period, it had to contend with the
taint of Russian ingerence, but it represented a definite step in the direction of an
independent stance in foreign affairs. In 1789, after the death of Frederick the
Great, it achieved the alliance with Prussia, which, complementing the internal
constitutional reforms of 3 May 1791, was intended to act as an instrument of lib-
eration. In the event, the Prussians' loyalty to this alliance proved weaker than
their fear of Russian retribution. In 1793 and in 1795, the Second and Third
Partitions proceeded without significant diplomatic opposition.
Throughout the century, in fact, Russian ambassadors in Warsaw made no
secret of their view that diplomacy was an adjunct to force. Almost invariably,
they kept a Russian army in the Republic, at the Republic's expense, and regu-
larly used it to suppress opposition. As Prince Gregory Dolgoruky, Peter I's
long-term resident in Warsaw, told the Lithuanian Hetman who had protested
at the abduction of Polish citizens, 'If my sovereign orders me to abduct you, I
shall do that too.' Prince Repnin, Catherine's first ambassador in 1763-9,