nor could admission be obtained to a levée at the Belvedere, unless he who sought the honour had at least one “decoration.”
Constantine found Warsaw with narrow tortuous streets, unsymmetrical mediæval houses, and palaces in which the means or taste of the owner had been more consulted than their external appearance. Constantine was charged to change all this; Warsaw must become a great and brilliant capital; therefore theatres, palaces, monuments, barracks, handsome squares, and light well-paved streets arose as if by enchantment. The rude city of the ancient republic vanished from fashionable eyes, and a graceful be-stuccoed imperial creation took its place. The squalid dwellings of the poor disappeared, and the poor were drafted off to build canals or make roads through the forests of the kingdom, and to die by hundreds of hunger and misery. The Vistula, one of the most rebellious of rivers, was tamed within stone dykes; manufacturers from Germany were invited to take up their abode in the capital, and the other cities of Poland; trade flourished; the royal revenues within a few years were raised to 10,000,000 Polish florins; the Bank contained 150,000,000, the Treasury a reserve of 30,000,000. The country was in successful process of civilisation; but it was civilisation filtered through a Russian medium—its material advantages without its better aspiration, luxury without refinement, wealth without public spirit or private charities.
The revenue had increased, because the people were so taxed that they would gladly have returned to serfage to secure themselves from dying of starvation; trade was actually in the hands of a few monopolists, who preyed on the necessities of the people, whilst they enriched themselves and bribed the Government. The brewers and distillers of Warsaw were obliged to sell all their produce at a fixed price to certain Jews, who alone were empowered to sell it again to the retail dealers; this regulation was subsequently found too favourable, so under pretence of the demoralising nature of their trade, they were prohibited from exercising it longer, and the whole business was transferred to the favoured monopolists: any person evading the monopoly laws was liable to forty years’ hard labour. Nor was this an exceptional instance; it was but part of the system.
The nobles of the kingdom formed far too numerous a class to constitute, generally speaking, a very wealthy body; many of them had in fact no other property than the home farm, the cultivation of which they and their sons superintended. Their patriarchal lives and simple tastes secured their independence; they formed the firmest bulwark of the nation, as the yeomen of old did in England. It was therefore the policy of the new Government to bring these men or their sons to Warsaw, to accustom them to habits and wants beyond their fortunes, and then, when the right moment came, to throw them the bait of some official employment, which, though wretchedly paid, offered a great many unofficial means of enriching its possessor.
To this end, the number of public offices was largely increased, while the salaries were considerably reduced.
The University of Warsaw had been spared, and was supposed to enjoy the peculiar favour of Alexander; but history and truth were banished from its walls. If any of the students had procured some book, perhaps by one of the greatest authors of England, France, or Germany, at the price of its weight in gold, they dared not read it, except in a place of secure concealment, and under mutual oath of secrecy. The debates in the Diet, formerly the scene of such turbulent eloquence, were now confined to the decorous discussion of local improvements, and were scarcely heard of beyond the walls. If one of the members, bolder than the rest, dared to transgress the tacit rules laid down by Constantine, it was at the risk of being dragged away as a felon to a secret dungeon, and to leave it only for exile or death. The Press soon discovered that the promised liberty could be indulged only at like risks, and took refuge in travels in Timbuctoo and French romances, or recounted viceregal levées, the virtues of Constantine, and the blessings of Russian rule.
Such were a few of the milder aspects of the new Government; but these things, though immediately inspired by Constantine, formed as yet but the amusement of his leisure; his real occupation was with the army,—the army that was to realise all his fondest dreams, his proudest ambition. On arriving at Warsaw, he soon collected 30,000 men, the remnants of the old legions, and had little difficulty in fast adding to their number. He devoted himself to the task of organising and drilling them with a patience and devotion truly Russian. For years, perhaps, he meditated an evolution to be carried out at a review: put 40,000 men in motion, to judge whether their coats answered better with nine or ten buttons: and would ransack all the military libraries in the kingdom, to learn the origin of the simplest manœuvre. He soon established a permanent camp at Provonski, close to Warsaw; there, dressed like a cuirassier, brushed, buttoned, and strapped—a model corporal—he passed day after day in marching his troops up and down through the soft sands of the Nola, to test their discipline. Perhaps after months of drilling to effect some particular manœuvre, a new fancy would seize the Czarowicz; then a council of war would be summoned, with all the solemnity as on the eve of a great battle, the old regulations would be altered, and all the drilling had to be recommenced. By tormenting his recruits in this manner, he at length produced a human machine, unsurpassed in flexibility and precision. The word of command passed down the hierarchy of officers: tramp, tramp, marched the men, as though moved by some strange spell, so unerring was each footfall, so accurate the most complicated evolution. The Czarowicz on each grand field-day fell into ecstacies of delight in his handiwork; he rushed about from rank to rank, distributing slaps on the shoulder here, oaths there, panted for breath, rubbed his hands, and, if everything went off well, would fall to beating his breast, until he had finally exhausted his strength, and was calm again.
These were his happy moments: and then there was no end to his activity. The army would,
