Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/77

  IV., bearing his shield, were there, and were the pride of the assembly.

The competitors for the throne bid high, many of them intending to repudiate their offers later. They were now reduced practically to two, one representing the emperor, the other Louis XIV. Charles of Lorraine proposed himself to pay the army for nine months, to raise five thousand fresh men for the war against the Turks, to take five hundred gentlemen as his guard of honor, to build two fortresses on the frontier, and open a military school for officers. The old Duke of Neubourg promised still more largely for his son Philip, aged fourteen.

Sobieski had hitherto confined himself to his duty of keeping order as chief marshal, while all present inquired anxiously what part he would take. As soon as he arrived, he was received almost in triumph; the shouts, the noise of arms, the flashing of javelins, lances, and scimitars, the flowers thrown in his way, made his entry almost a triumph. He then declared himself for the Great Condé. And the influence of the "great hetman" was such that there seemed for some time every chance that his counsels would be followed, but the Lithuanian party of the Paz would not hear of the French prince. The confusion became still greater; the szopa was like a citadel besieged by armies of men half drunk with pride and rage. For twenty-nine days the destinies of the nation only grew more and more perplexing, and the furious parties seemed on the point of a civil war, when to avert such a frightful peril the Bishop of Cracow gave the signal for the hymns and prayers to be begun, which showed that the debates were closed, and the palatinates separated for the vote.

The president, Jablonowski, a man of great courage and capacity, began his discourse; he entered on the qualities of the two chief candidates, and rejected both, as the nominees of France and Germany. He discussed the qualities of the Great Condé, and then declared that "a Pole ought to reign in Poland."

There is a man among us who has saved the republic time after time by his counsels and his victories, whose patriotism and genius would maintain our country in the rank the should hold in the universe. Nothing in such a choice would be left to chance; he will not make us a vassal of the infidels. If we have a country at all, if men of illustrious dynasties care to rule over us, remember to whom we owe it, and take John Sobieski as your king!

The speech was received with furious acclamations by the assembly. "The finger of God is here, it was on a Saturday as to-day that Kotzim was taken," cried the governor of Lemberg; "I vote for Sobieski." The tumult was tremendous; it was nine o'clock at night, but the long day of the north still gave sufficient light, and they would have proceeded immediately to the vote, but Sobieski would not suffer it. "I will not accept the crown," said he, "when no one has had the time to consider his vote, at the approach of night when opposition might be stifled or constrained. I will raise my veto against it if no one else will do so."

The next day the agitation became still greater. Austria did not yet consider herself beaten; every possible calumny was disseminated against Sobieski, while the jealousy of the great Polish ladies was excited against his wife, Marie Casimire, daughter of a French marquis, captain of the guard to the brother of Louis XIV. Would they consent that a foreigner should be queen when no Pole had ever attained to such honor? At all events if Sobieski were elected he should be required to marry the widow of the last king; but at such a price he absolutely refused the crown. His great qualities, however, carried the day. Cries of "Sobieski or death!" were heard in the camp; the assembly would hear of no delay. Again, however, he declared that if his election was not legal, and therefore unanimous, he would not accept the crown. Throughout the night the camp was illuminated with innumerable lanterns, while the firing of muskets, pistols, and arquebuses testified the excitement and the joy of the public at the thought of the election which they had resolved on making. The next day Sobieski, almost against his will, was proclaimed king at the Kolo or Assembly; the vote was now only a form, but it was gone through. Three times did the bishop regent, on horseback, demand if there were any opposition to the election. Three times did the nobles and the people repeat the cry proclaiming that John Sobieski should be their king.

All the standards of the palatinates and of the foreign contingents, the bells of the town, the salvoes of artillery, the shouts of the people, saluted their hero as king. Then at a sign from the bishop came a sudden silence, the banners were lowered, a sacred hymn was sung by the people, led by a choir of bishops, and the acclamations began again as Sobieski was led in triumph to the cathedral, where thanks were offered up to God for the choice 