Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/535

244. The annual festival of the Order is held on the 23rd April (7th May).

The sketch of the cross will be found in Tab. IV. No. 20, and that of the star, first class, under No. 19.

ORDER OF MILITARY MERIT.

The new constitution proclaimed in Poland, on the 3rd May, 1791, met the approval of Prussia, Saxony and other foreign courts, and was received with unfeigned applause by the nation at large. Its opponents, however, whose selfish discontent with the new arrangements fully met the ambitious views of the Empress Catharine IT., concluded with her Majesty on the 24th May, 1792, the secret convention of Targowitz which induced the Empress to send her troops across the frontier of Poland. The Poles courageously accepted the challenge, and investing Stanislaus Augustus with the chief command, provided from their own resources all the necessary means for the defence of the state. Stanislaus then founded the Order of Miltary Merit, but having at the head of the troops transferred the chief command to his nephew Joseph Poniatowsky, he ordered him to retire before the Russians.

Soon afterwards (25th August) he acceded, himself, to the Targowitz convention, subscribed to all its conditions, annulled the constitution, and even abolished the Order of his own creation, instructing the Knights who were in possession of it, to return the insignia to the treasury.

The establishment, however, of the Duchy of Warsaw, in 1807, restored the ephemeral existence of the Order, under the Grand Mastership of King Frederick Augustus of Saxony.

The Emperor Alexander did not interfere with the Order, even after his having taken possession of Poland; it thus dragged on its