Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/277

Rh monarchs who took up arms without any view of aggrandizement or interest. He said himself, and I have no doubt sincerely, that, if he had reigned at the time, far from co-operating in the partition of Poland, he would have been strongly opposed to it.

The preparations for our voyage were completed on the 18th of December. The Emperor presented to General Kosciuszko a splendid carriage, made on purpose that he might travel lying; he gave him also a beautiful pelisse, a large sable cap, a portable cooking apparatus, and a complete set of table linen of the finest description. He presented to me a beautiful pelisse, and a sable cap. Kosciuszko went to the palace to thank him. When he reached the foot of the staircase, he was placed in the rolling chair of the late Empress, which was waiting him, and was drawn by the gardes du corps through a long suite of apartments, filled with the lords of the Court, to the bed-room of the Emperor, where he received him surrounded with all his family. Paul I, the Empress, the young