Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/252

224 Prussian or Austrian subjects, we were strictly ordered to obey. The formula of the oath was terrible. We swore not only fealty and obedience to the Emperor, but we promised to shed blood for his glory; we pledged ourselves to reveal all, that we ever should learn, dangerous to his person or empire; we declared, moreover, that in whatever quarter of the world we might be, a single word of the Emperor would oblige us to leave everything, and hasten to his person. This oath was in Polish, dictated by a Catholic priest.

After this revolting ceremony Samoilow embraced my companions, and was already advancing towards me, when, casting his eyes upon the portrait of Potemkin, his uncle, and very probably remembering what I had said and written on this singular and barbarous man, he suddenly drew back, as if he had touched a serpent. I saw, the same evening, several countrymen of mine, who, since the partition, either having charges at the court, or hoping to recover, under the new reign, their estates which were confiscated by Catherine, lived at St.