He did not answer the palatine, but with streaming eyes bent
over the table, and annulled the glorious constitution of 1791. Then
with emotions hardly short of agony, he signed an order presented by
a plenipotentiary from the combined powers, which directed Prince
Poniatowski to deliver the army under his command into the hands of
General Brinicki.
As the king put his signature to these papers, Sobieski, who had
strenuously withstood each decision, started from his chair, bowed to
his sovereign, and in silence left the apartment. Several noblemen
followed him.
These pacific measures did not meet with better treatment from
without. When they were noised abroad, an alarming commotion arose
among the inhabitants of Warsaw, and nearly four thousand men of the
first families in the kingdom assembled themselves in the park of
Villanow, and with tumultuous eagerness declared their resolution to
resist the invaders of their country to their last gasp. The Prince
Sapieha, Kosciusko, and Sobieski, with the sage Dombrowski, were the
first who took this oath of fidelity to Poland; and they administered
it to Thaddeus, who, kneeling down, inwardly invoked Heaven to aid
him, as he swore to fulfil his trust.
In the midst of these momentous affairs, Pembroke Somerset bade adieu
to his Polish friends, and set sail with his governor from Dantzic
for England.
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