every one thought that Czartoryski, who more than any other man had prepared the way for it, would be its first governor-general, but he was content with the title of senator-palatine and a share in the administration. In 1817 the prince married Anna Sapiezanko, the wedding leading to a duel with his rival Pac. On the death of his father in 1823 he retired to his ancestral castle at Pulawy; but the Revolution of 1830 brought him back to public life. As president of the provisional government he summoned (Dec. 18th, 1830) the Diet of 1831, and after the termination of Chlopicki’s dictatorship was elected chief of the supreme council by 121 out of 138 votes (January 30th). On the 16th of September his disapproval of the popular excesses at Warsaw caused him to quit the government after sacrificing half his fortune to the national cause; but it must be admitted that throughout the insurrection he did not act up to his great reputation. Yet the energy of the sexagenarian statesman was wonderful. On the 23rd of August he joined Girolano Ramorino’s army-corps as a volunteer, and subsequently formed a confederation of the three southern provinces of Kalisch, Sandomir and Cracow. At the end of the war he emigrated to France, where he resided during the last thirty years of his life. He died at his country residence at Montfermeil, near Meaux, on the 15th of July 1861. He left two sons, Witold (1824–1865), and Wladyslaus (1828–1894), and a daughter Isabella, who married Jan Dzialynski in 1857. The principal works of Czartoryski are Essai sur la diplomatie (Marseilles, 1830); Life of J. U. Niemcewiez (Pol). (Paris, 1860); Alexander I. et Czartoryski: correspondance ... et conversations (1801–1823) (Paris, 1865); Mémoires et correspondance avec Alex. I., with preface by C. de Mazade, 2 vols. (Paris, 1887); an English translation Memoirs of Czartoryski, &c., edited by A. Gielguch, with documents relating to his negotiations with Pitt, and conversations with Palmerston in 1832 (2 vols., London, 1888).
See Bronislaw Zaleski, Life of Adam Czartoryski (Pol.) (Paris, 1881); Lubomir Gadon, Prince Adam Czartoryski (Pol.) (Cracow, 1892); Ludovik Debicki, Pulawy, vol. iv.; Lubomir Gadon, Prince Adam Czartoryski during the Insurrection of November (Pol.) (Cracow, 1900). (R. N. B.)
CZARTORYSKI, FRYDERYK MICHAL, Prince (1696–1775), Polish statesman, was born in 1696. Of small means and no position, he owed his elevation in the world to extraordinary ability, directed by an energetic but patriotic ambition. After a careful education on the best French models, which he completed at Paris, Florence and Rome, he attached himself to the
court of Dresden, and through the influence of Count Fleming, the leading minister there, obtained the vice-chancellorship of Lithuania and many other dignities. Czartoryski was one of the many Polish nobles who, when Augustus II. was seriously ill at Bialyvostok in 1727, signed the secret declaration guaranteeing the Polish succession to his son; but this did not prevent him
from repudiating his obligations when Stanislaus Leszczynski was placed upon the throne by the influence of France in 1733.
When Stanislaus abdicated in 1735 Czartoryski voted for
Augustus III. (of Saxony), who gladly employed him and his
family to counteract the influence of the irreconcilable Potokis.
For the next forty years Czartoryski was certainly the leading
Polish statesman. In foreign affairs he was the first to favour
an alliance with Russia, Austria and England, as opposed to
France and Prussia—a system difficult to sustain and not always
beneficial to Poland or Saxony. In Poland Czartoryski was at
the head of the party of reform. His palace was the place where
the most promising young gentlemen of the day were educated
and sent abroad that they might return as his coadjutors in the
great work. His plan aimed at the restoration of the royal
prerogative and the abolition of the liberum veto, an abuse that
made any durable improvement impossible. These patriotic
endeavours made the Czartoryskis very unpopular with the
ignorant szlachta, but for many years they had the firm and
constant support of the Saxon court, especially after Brühl
succeeded Fleming.
Czartoryski reached the height of his power in 1752 when he was entrusted with the great seal of Lithuania; but after that date the influence of his rival Mniszek began to prevail at Dresden, whereupon Czartoryski sought a reconciliation with his political opponents at home and foreign support both in England and Russia. In 1755 he sent his nephew Stanislaus Poniatowski to St Petersburg as Saxon minister, a mission which failed completely. Czartoryski’s philo-Russian policy had by this time estranged Brühl, but he frustrated all the plans of the Saxon court by dissolving the diets of 1760, 1761 and 1762. In 1763 he went a step farther and proposed the dethronement of Augustus III., who died the same year. During the ensuing interregnum the prince chancellor laboured night and day at the convocation diet of 1764 to reform the constitution, and it was with displeasure that he saw his incompetent nephew Stanislaus finally elected king in 1765. But though disgusted with the weakness of the king and obliged to abandon at last all hope of the amelioration of his country, Czartoryski continued to hold office till the last; and as chancellor of Lithuania he sealed all the partition treaties. He died in the full possession of his faculties and was considered by the Russian minister Repnin “the soundest head in the kingdom.” It is a mistake, however, to regard Czartoryski as the sole reforming statesman of his day, and despite his great services there were occasions when the partisan in him got the better of the statesman. His foreign policy, moreover, was very vacillating, and he changed his “system” more frequently perhaps than any contemporary diplomatist. But when all is said he must remain one of the noblest names in Polish history.
See the Correspondence of Czartoryski in the Collections of the Russian Historical Society, vols. 7, 10, 13, 48, 51, 67 (St Petersburg, 1890, &c.); Wladyslaw Tadeusz Kisielewski, Reforms of the Czartorysccy (Pol.) (Sambor, 1880); Adalbert Roepell, Polen um die Mitte des XVIII. Jahrhunderts (Gotha, 1876); Jacques Victor Albert de Broglie, Le Secret du roi (Paris, 1878); Antoni Waliszewki, The Potoccy and the Czartorysccy (Pol.); Carl Heinrich Heyking, Aus Polens und Kurlands letzten Tagen (Berlin, 1897); Ludwik Denbicki, Pulawy (Pol.) (Lemberg, 1887–1888). (R. N. B.)
CZECH (in Bohemian, Čech), a name which signifies an
inhabitant of Čechy, the native designation of Bohemia. The
Czechs belong to the Slavic race, and according to the usually
accepted division they form, together with the Poles and the
almost extinct Lusatians, the group of the Western Slavs.
Speaking generally, it can be said that the Czechs inhabit a large
part of Bohemia, a yet larger part of Moravia, parts of Silesia—both
Austrian and Prussian—and extensive districts in northern
Hungary. In the 19th century the Czechs of Hungary—much
to their own detriment—developed a written language that differs
slightly from that used in Bohemia, but as regards their race they
are identical with the Bohemians and Moravians. Beyond the
borders of this continuous territory there are many Czechs in
Lower Austria. Vienna in particular has a large and increasing
Czech population. There are also numerous Czechs in Russia,
particularly Volhynia, in the United States—where a large number
of newspapers and periodicals are published in the Czech
language—and in London. Though the statistics are very
uncertain and untrustworthy, it can be stated that the Czechs
number about eight millions.
The period at which the Czechs settled in Bohemia is very uncertain; all theories, indeed, with regard to the advent of the Slavs in northern and eastern Europe are merely conjectural. It was formerly generally accepted as a fact that all Bohemia was originally inhabited by Celtic tribes, who were succeeded by the Germanic Marcomanni, and later by the Slavic Czechs. According to a very ancient tradition reproduced in the book of Cosmas, the earliest Bohemian chronicler, the Czechs arrived in Bohemia led by their eponymous chief Čechus, and first settled on the Řip Hill (Georgberg) near Roudnice. It is a strange proof of the intense obscurity of the earliest Bohemian history that Cosmas, writing at the beginning of the 12th century, is already unaware of the existence of pre-Slavic inhabitants of Bohemia. It is historically certain that the Czechs inhabited parts of Bohemia as early as the 6th century. In the absence of all historical evidence, modern Czech scholars have endeavoured by other means to throw some light on the earliest period of the
