Nay, punishment should not stop there; for if the king
joined the Sobieski party (to which he now appeared inclined), the
royal domains should not only meet the same fate, but harsher
treatment should follow, until both the people and their proud
sovereign were brought into due subjection."
These menaces were too arrogant to have any other effect upon the
Poles than that of giving a new spur to their resolution. With the
same firmness they repulsed similar fulminations from the Prussian
ambassador, and, with a coolness which was only equalled by their
intrepidity, they prepared to resume their arms.
Hearing by private information that their threats were despised, next
morning, before daybreak, these despotic envoys surrounded the
building where the confederation was sitting with two battalions of
grenadiers and four pieces of cannon, and then issued orders that no
Pole should pass the gates without being fired on. General
Rautenfeld, who was set over the person of the king, declared that
not even his majesty might stir until the Diet had given an unanimous
and full consent to the imperial commands.
The Diet set forth the unlawfulness of signing any treaty whilst thus
withheld from the freedom of will and debate. They urged that it was
not legal to enter into deliberation when violence had recently been
exerted against any individual of their body; and how could they do
it now, deprived as they were of five of their principal members,
whom the ambassadors well knew they had arrested on their way to the
Senate? Sobieski and four of his friends being the members most
inimical to the oppression going on, were these five.
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