The year 1793 saw the second partition of Poland, between Russia and Prussia. Russia annexed Volhynia, with a part of the province of Kiev, Podolia, and the region of Minsk. Prussia, in turn, acquired the other part of Great Poland (Kalish, Plotzk,[227] etc.), with Dantzic and Thorn. Once more an enormous territory, with hundreds of thousands of Jews, was cut off from Poland. The unfortunate nation, seized with a paroxysm of pain at this new amputation, burst forth against its torturers. The Revolution of 1794 took its course. At the head of the uprising stood Kosciuszko.[228] Having been reared in the atmosphere of two great revolutions--the American and the French--he had a loftier conception of civic and political liberty than the liberalizing host of the Polish Shlakhta. He was aware that no free country could exist without first abolishing the serfdom of the peasants and the inequality of the citizens. Even in the heat of his struggle for the salvation of the fatherland, the Polish leader occasionally gave proof of his democratic tendencies, and the oppressed classes could not but feel that this revolution was more than merely an affair of the Shlakhta. The enthusiasm for liberty communicated itself to several sections of Polish Jewry. It was manifested during the prolonged Russo-Prussian siege of Warsaw in the summer and autumn of 1794, when the whole population was called to arms to defend the capital. The very same Jews who but a little while ago had been attacked on the streets of Warsaw by the burghers and artisans, and were mercilessly driven from the city by order of the administration, now, in the moment of danger, fought in the trenches shoulder to shoulder with their persecutors, digging ditches and throwing up earthworks. Frequently at an alarm signal the volunteers would rush out to fight back the besiegers. Amidst the whistling of bullets and bursting of shells they repulsed the enemies' attacks side by side with the other Varsovians, furnishing their quota in wounded and killed, and yet keeping up their courage. Among the Jews defending Warsaw the plan was conceived of forming a separate Jewish legion to fight for the country. At the head of this patriotic group stood Berek Yoselovich.[229] Born about 1765 in the little town of Kretingen,[230] Berek had traversed the thorny path that led a poor Jewish boy from the Jewish religious school (heder) to the post of a pan's agent. He entered the employ of a high noble, the Bishop of Vilna, by the name of Masalski, and was thereby launched upon his remarkable career. Masalski often went abroad, especially to Paris, and always took his Jewish agent with him. During these travels young Berek early acquired the French language, and observed the life of the Parisian salons in which the master moved. The plain Polish Jew perceived a new world, and he could not help scenting the new tendencies floating about in the air of the world's capital on the eve of the great Revolution.