Note 36 — Front matter (continued 2)

The prince Wirtemberg, who commanded the corps against which general Dwernicki was sent, had served in the Polish army as brigadier-general. He was cousin to the present king of Wirtemberg, and nephew of the late Emperor Alexander, who married his aunt. This prince commanded the 2d and 4th regiment of hulans, of the first of which regiments general Dwernicki was colonel. In this way the prince was perfectly well known to general Dwernicki, and was held by him in very low esteem, as a man of vanity and pretension, and a tyrant over his subalterns. The vices of his character developed themselves sufficiently during our revolution. At the breaking out of the revolution at Warsaw, this man was at Krasny-staw, a small town in the palatinate of Lublin, in which his brigade was posted. On the arrival of the news of the revolution, his first care was to secrete himself. Afterwards, finding that it was impossible to keep concealed, he began to tamper with the brigade, and tried to persuade his soldiers to adhere to the service of the Grand Duke, and to refuse to join the cause of their country. These false persuasions, coming from him, a general in the Polish service, in open defiance of the will of the nation, and in opposition to its holiest efforts, afforded a sufficient ground of accusation against him, to have brought him to judgment as a traitor. Besides all this, by his tyrannic conduct as a general, he had deserved severe treatment. But all these offences were forgotten, and the nation spared him, merely ordering him to quit the country. He exhibited his gratitude for this delicate treatment, by departing for Russia and the Polish provinces, and pointing out for arrest some of the most respectable citizens, who were known for their patriotic sentiments. He passed several days at Wlodawa, a small frontier town between the Polish kingdom and the government of Grodno. There he was guilty of the mean act of intercepting the correspondence between the different patriotic individuals.

This was not enough. In the campaign, he took the command of a Russian corps destined to act in the very palatinate of Lublin where he had held his Polish command for fourteen years, and where all the proprietors had treated him with the greatest kindness and delicacy. Arriving there with his corps, he left at every step the traces of his tyranny. On reaching Pulawa, the estate of the beloved Czartoriski, the president of the national government, the residence of that family from which he had himself received so many kindnesses, and in which every virtue reigned, he did not scruple to give orders to burn the town;—he did not scruple to take the name in history of 'the devastator of Pulawa'—of that beautiful spot on which the labor of ages had been expended, and which was so celebrated for the charms with which nature as well as art had enriched it. His cruelties were carried to such a height, that he actually caused to be beaten with the knout, a young lady, a friend of the princess Czartoriski, who had manifested her patriotic sentiments by the sacrifice of her jewels to aid the cause of her country. Even the princess Czartoriski, who was already at an advanced age, was not spared the insults of this gross man, who, to put the finishing stroke to his barbarity, on his second visit to Pulawa, directed a fire of artillery upon the palace, which he knew was occupied only by the princess and her ladies. Even the Russians themselves regarded these actions with abhorrence. In regard to his military talents, they were of the lowest order. General Dwernicki promised that in a few weeks he would despatch him; and he in fact kept this promise to the letter.