Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/272

244 to whom I related my adventure, and the perplexity into which it had thrown me. “I will explain all that to you,” said she. “You remember that, being urged by your friend Mostowski, you paid, a few days ago, a visit to the old Princess Czetwertynska, whose husband being amongst the first that sold themselves to Russia, was sentenced and hanged during the revolution. Well then, this Princess, who breathes only hatred and vengeance against you all, and particularly against you, as Kosciuszko's intimate friend, has played you the trick of which you are speaking. You had forgotten that she had just been appointed lady in waiting to the Empress, but she remembered it too well, as she and all of her stamp dread you, and try by every possible means to frighten you, and to make you leave St. Petersburgh as soon as possible. I was petrified at such a dark calumny.

This circumstance having shown me that not only the oppressors of my country, but even my own countrymen might ruin me on