Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/192

164 wife of a cobbler. He observed religiously all holy-days, even the carnival. On Shrove-Tuesday he put on his best Polish dress, with a beautiful girdle, embroidered with gold and silk, and all this to go to the commodités, for the poor fellow could go nowhere else. He was released at the same time as Kapostas.

During the whole time of my captivity there were only three other persons brought into our prison. The first of them in the month of August 1795. I learnt afterwards that this was a young man who had been formerly in Potemkin's service, and who, I know not for what reason, had disclosed to the government how Madame Branicka had taken into her possession Prince Potemkin's diamonds, of which the latter had a full chest, belonging partly to the Empress and partly to himself. Branicka, his niece, who was with him at the time of his death, carried off the finest of them. The Empress, and the heirs of Potemkin, and amongst them Samoilow, being equally interested in their