ONE:Felipa felt something of this, and it lessened the vague burden of self-reproach she had been carrying. She was almost cheerful when she got back to the post. Through the last breakfast, which the Elltons took for granted must be a sad one, and conscientiously did their best to make so, she had some difficulty in keeping down to their depression.Catherine of Russia, thus rid of the only two monarchs who were likely to trouble her with scruples, hastened her grand design of absorbing Poland. She professed to be much scandalised and alarmed at the proceedings of the king, who had attended a dinner given by the municipality of Warsaw on the anniversary of the passing of their new Constitution, at which he had not only responded to the toast of his health by drinking to the nation and the municipality, thus sanctioning them as great powers, as the French had done, but had sat complacently amid the loud cries of "Long live Liberty! Long live the nation, and our citizen king, the friend of the Rights of Man!" The Poles had certainly become enthusiastic imitators of the French; they had[397] established clubs in imitation of the clubs of Paris, had sent a deputation to congratulate the French on their Revolution, and had passed various decrees of a Jacobin character. Neither did she lack a sanction from the Poles themselves. There had always been violent parties in that kingdom; and at this time a number of nobles, who opposed the new Constitution, sent a deputation with a memorial to the Empress, at St. Petersburg, inviting her to assist them in restoring the old Constitution. Catherine gave them a ready promise, and, on the 14th of May, Felix Potocki, Branicki, Rzewinski, and eleven other nobles, met at Targowica, and entered into a confederacy for this purpose. This confederacy was followed, only four days after its signing, by a protest issued by Bulgakoff, the Russian Minister, at Warsaw, against the whole of the new institutions and decrees. On the 18th of May, the same day that this proclamation was issued at Warsaw, a hundred thousand Russian troops marched over the Polish frontiers, attended by some of the pro-Russian confederates, and assumed the appearance of an army of occupation.
TWO:
ONE:At last he delivered a suggestion that met unanimous approval.
TWO:It was not, however, till the 12th of August that they were ready with their batteries. The effect of the bombardment was almost instantaneous. Within six hours nearly all the enemy's guns were silenced, and the next day the Spaniards capitulated, agreeing to yield not only the place, and the vessels in the harbour, but the country for a hundred and eighty miles to the westward; in fact, all the best part of Cuba. The booty taken was valued at nearly three million pounds.
ONE:
TWO:158In the opinion of Landor, who knew the impracticable country foot for foot, they were well-intentioned lunatics. But they were agreeable guests, who exchanged the topics of the happy East for the wild turkey and commissary supplies of the Far West, and in departing took with them a picturesque, if inexact, notion of army life on the frontier, and left behind a large number of books for Felipa, who had dazzled their imaginations.
