Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/24

 18 and his country were to stand in deadly opposition to each other, and his young dreams of fame to be forever sacrificed. His life was a long penitential offering to his incensed country for the faults of his father. He sacrificed all glory to win silence and pardon for the illustrious offender.

The year 1825 was a memorable one in Russian history, in consequence of the sudden death of Alexander, and the outbreak of a wide-spread conspiracy for a constitutional government in Russia, of which the leaders were Pestel, Orloff, Ryléiéf, Bestuchef-Rumin, and Kachowski. During the inquiries instituted at St. Petersburg, it became evident that there were societies existing in Poland whose principal object was the restoration of that country to independence. Uminski, Jablonowski, Soltyk, Kryzanowski, Lukasinski, and others, members of one of these societies, were indicted for high treason. The trial fell under the jurisdiction of the ancient kingdom of Poland, whose capital was the city of Warsaw.

The reduced Poland of the Congress of Vienna enjoyed a nominal constitution, and the Polish Senate was convoked to preserve, ostensibly at least, a legal form. Some Senators were then living abroad, as Prince Adam Czartoryski, but they hastened home to record their patriotic votes. The President of this high tribunal was elected in the person of the Palatine, Peter Bielinski. The Commission of Inquiry classed the accused under five categories, and the Senate was charged to decide on their fate. It appointed lawyers as counsel for the prisoners; the proceedings were public, and lasted a month, when the court, with the exception of one dissentient voice, set aside the charge of high treason, and gave their decision: "Not guilty;" a decision based on the principle that all Poles naturally desire the independence of their fatherland. The one dissenting Polish voice was that of General Count Vincent Krasinski, the father of our Poet!

The Emperor ordered the judges to be reprimanded, a thing before unheard of, and consoled himself by confining the accused in the dungeons of St. Petersburg, in direct violation of the constitution,—and this was one of