Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/320



through the side wing of the great Kremlin palace at Moscow, which contains the armoury (Orusheinaya Palata), we see, in the lower storey, twenty-two marble busts of Polish kings and distinguished Poles; in the storey above, in the large round hall, the Polish throne, and, near by, the crown worn by the last king of Poland, Stanislaus Augustus; and finally, in the adjoining room (opposite Charles XII.'s sedan chair, taken at the battle at Poltawa), sixty Polish banners, captured from 1831 to 1863, with Polish inscriptions, torn by bullets, and to the right of these, on the floor, a beautifully made closed casket. In this casket is deposited the constitution of the 3rd of May 1791. "Poland's patent of nobility among the people of Europe" has become an object in a museum. A Russian who accompanied me to the Kremlin, in spite of his nationality, made the remark: "It makes a melancholy impression to see the banners and the casket here." How strange it must be for a Pole, with any national feeling, to see the great men of his country, the insignia which were the symbols of the dignity of his fatherland as an independent power, its ensigns with the white eagle, nay, even the Magna Charta, which his people, in the most supreme moment of its life, formed for its future, and which was never rightfully displaced, exhibited here in the imperial palace of a foreign capital, as curiosities for the amusement of spectators! It must be like reading one's own name on a tombstone.

To be fought against, to be persecuted, to be treated as a criminal, when you are in the right, may be borne; but to see yourself treated as dead, to see your memories, your pride, your banner, your charter exhibited to the scorn of another as his possessions, as trinkets found in a grave,