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324
SWEDISH NEUTRALITY [chap, xviii.
expressed fears that the reactionary party might one
day profit by this to go back on the promises made to
the Poles.
What effect did the manifesto produce on the Poles
themselves? I was told that one of the great Polish
nobles, Count Joseph P-, had replied to some one who
questioned him as to his personal impressions: " Not
for one moment did I believe in it; but in reading the
manifesto I wept copiously all the same ! " It seems to
me that this impression was shared by the majority of
the Polish people: they wished to believe, they were
stirred to the depths of their souls, but on the whole
they did not believe us ! It was not that they suspected
us of conscious and intentional imposture; but they
dreaded the eternal weakness, the eternal instability of
our best, our noblest resolutions.
Personally—indeed there is nothing Polish about me
—I was less sceptical, for I wished to believe. At last, I
thought, a first decisive blow seems to have been struck
at that mass of violence, iniquity, lying and mutual hatred
that dishonour my country, her history and her public
life ! For it was chiefly from the Russian point of view
that I considered the question. The subjection and the
partition of Poland had, during a hundred and forty
years, been the cause of much private suffering and
trouble, but taking the Polish nation as a whole this
subjection and even this odious partition had been more
beneficial than pernicious. In the eighteenth century
there was no longer any real Polish nation, no real
Polish State ; Poland at that time represented obsolete
feudal chaos, involved in progressive decay. The
misfortunes of the country revived an ardent patriotism,
created national cohesion and finally caused astonishing
economic progress ; moreover Russian power had never
been wielded in Poland to the detriment of the purely
material interests of the people ; on the contrary ; and
the definite liberation of the Polish serfs and the giving
them land were the work of the rlgime of the Tsars.
But for Russia herself the subjection of Poland and
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