Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/210

198 dynasty, would be compelled to wage war against the old royal families that had partitioned Poland. And yet, as already stated, before his Russian campaign Napoleon did not disdain to issue a proclamation to the Poles in Kosciusko's name, in which he speaks of himself with the most profound admiration. It begins thus: "Amid the din of arms with which Poland resounds, Kosciusko addresses himself to you. Thus has Napoleon's high destiny willed, he who destroys and creates kings, who strikes down hostile nations with his lightning, . . . the man of fate turns his eyes and thoughts on you."

Upon all occasions Napoleon abused, sacrificed, and deceived Poland. But this people, who since the dissolution of the State seemed doomed to hope against hope, did not abandon him on that account. On the contrary. Immediately after the Emperor's fall, as we shall see, a Napoleon-cult sprang up in Poland, in comparison with which that in other countries and other literatures is inconsiderable.

Alexander I. in his first period was mildly disposed towards Poland. In the short interval between the year 1815, with the good constitution it brought, and the time when Alexander's reactionary efforts began, the intellectual development proceeded smoothly and freely, undisturbed by political contests. At this period the Franco-classical production of the time of Stanislaus Augustus was rejected as mere drawing-room literature. There was a struggle here as elsewhere, but of short duration, between the classicists and the romanticists; then the different provinces enter in turn upon the scene, with their new brood of poets; first Ukrainia, then Lithuania, then the others, were all permeated by the feeling that it was time to leave the hot air of luxurious rooms for contact with the people at large under the open heavens.