Having been passed over by the Constitution of May 3, the Jews, if we are to believe the accounts of several contemporaries, made an attempt to influence the Government and the Diet through the instrumentality of King Stanislav Augustus, approaching the latter with the help of their connections at court. Jewish public leaders are said to have assembled in secret and elected three delegates, who were to enter into negotiations with the King looking to the amelioration of the condition of the Jews. The three delegates carried out their mandate, towards the end of 1791 and the beginning of 1792, with the help of the Royal Secretary Piatoli as their go-between. Shortly thereafter they were received by the King in special audience, with great solemnity, the King, as the story has it, being seated on his throne during the reception. The Jews pleaded for civil rights as well as for the right of acquiring lands and houses in the cities, the preservation of their communal autonomy, and exemption from the jurisdiction of the magistracies. The story goes that the Jewish delegates held out the promise of a gift of twenty million gulden to pay the royal debts. Several leaders of the Diet, among them Kollontay, a radical, were initiated into the secret. The King, according to this report, endeavored to push the Jewish reform project through the Jewish Commission and the Diet, but failed in his efforts. The problem of ages could not be disposed of at this anxious hour when the angel of death was hovering over Poland, while the unfortunate land was exhausting its strength in a final dash for inner regeneration and outer independence. 3. THE LAST TWO PARTITIONS AND BEREK YOSELOVICH The death struggle of Poland was approaching. The opponents of the May Constitution among the conservative elements of the country joined hands with the Russian Government, which in its own sphere of influence had always been a baneful stumbling-block in the path of progress. The result was the formation of the Confederacy of Targovitza[226] and the outbreak of civil war (summer, 1792). Though severed from political life, the Jews nevertheless showed sympathy here and there with the men that fought for the new Constitution. The Jewish tailors of Vilna undertook to furnish gratis two hundred uniforms for the army of liberty. The communities of Sokhachev and Pulavy contributed their mite towards the patriotic funds. The Jews of Berdychev took part in the deputation of the local merchants which went to meet Joseph Poniatovski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish army, and presented him with new instruments for the regimental music bands. On many an occasion the Jewish communities of Volhynia and Podolia were the victims of enforced requisitions from both belligerent armies. The community of Ostrog had to undergo the bombardment of the city by the Russian army in July, 1792.