Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/43

Rh and at last, at night, we returned to our headquarters, established in the above mentioned brick-house.

Let people say what they may about presentiments! On the eve of the most unlucky day in my life, a day in which I lost my liberty, and witnessed with the greatest pain the events which precipitated the total ruin of my native country, I was calm and even merry. The house where we were had been plundered and laid waste, as were all others which the Russians had passed. It belonged formerly to the family of Macieiowski, and afterwards to that of Zamoyski. In the drawing-room, on the first floor, were to be seen, family portraits, Primates, Grand Chancellors, Grand Generals, Bishops, etc. All those gentlemen had their eyes put out, and their faces cut with swords, and mangled by the Cossacks. We found no books, as it was the part of general-officers to carry these along with them wherever they could find them, but a box with pamphlets, and a collection of Polish newspapers from the beginning of the