Foreign and domestic revolutionists soon understand each
other; and the dynasty of Sobieski being speedily overturned by the
double treason of pretended friends and false allies, his three
princely sons withdrew from occasioning the dire conflict of a civil
war, two into distant lands, the other to the ancestral patrimony, in
provinces far from the intrigues of ambition or the temptation of its
treacherous lures.
"The two elder brothers, in a natural indignation against the popular
ingratitude, took the expatriating destination. But Constantine, the
youngest born, with the calm dignity of a son without other desired
inheritance than the honor of such a parent, retired to the tranquil
seclusion of the castled domain of Olesko, the ancient fortified
palace of his progenitors, on the Polish border of Red Russia; and
there, in philosophic quiet, he passed his blameless days with
science and the arts, and in deeds of true Christian benevolence-the
purport of his life. This respected seclusion was ultimately sweetly
cheered when "woman smiled" upon it, in the form of a fair daughter
of a neighboring magnate in the adjacent province, whose noble
retirement, sharing the same patriotic principles with those of
Constantine, yielded to the young philosopher a lovely helpmate for
him.
"Prince James, his eldest brother, had meanwhile married a sister of
their early associate in arms, the brave Charles of Newburg, when
under the royal banner of Sobieski, in the memorable field of Vienna.
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