"Forget your country," said Paul. "The same lot has befallen her as so many other states of which only the memory has remained in history; and in that history you will always be gloriously remembered." "Would rather that I should be forgotten," was Kościuszko's reply, "and my country remain free. Certainly many states have fallen, but there is no example like the fall of Poland. ... It was in the very moment of her uprising, just when she was desirous to attain liberty of rule, precisely when she showed the greatest energy and patriotism, that Poland fell." "But confess," went on the Tsar, "that this freedom of yours did not agree with the interests of the neighbouring states, and that your countrymen themselves served as the instrument of the destruction of their country." "Excuse me, Your Imperial Majesty, from further explanations on that point, for I can neither think nor speak without strong feeling about my country's fall." "You do not offend me," graciously replied Paul; "but on the contrary I esteem you the more, for it is the first time that I have spoken to a citizen whom I recognize as really loving his country. If at least the greater part of the Poles thought as you do, Poland might still exist." "Sire," said Kościuszko, with deep emotion, "that greater part was certainly there. If only Your Imperial Majesty could have been the eyewitness of that virtue, that patriotism, of which they gave no common proofs in the last Rising! I know how men tried to give Your Imperial Majesty the falsest and worst ideas about our nation, because they represented them in the eyes of the whole world as a horde of noisy ruffians, intolerant of rule and law, and therefore unworthy of existence. Virtuous and universal zeal only for the bettering of the country's lot, for freedom from oppression and disorder, was called sedition; the best desires of good citizenship were accounted as a crime, and as the result of a brawling Jacobinism: finally, not only against all justice, but against the true interests of Russia, the destruction of the unhappy country by the complete dismemberment of her territory was given out as the most salutary counsel. How many outrages, perilous for the lot of every state, have resulted from it!" said he, in words of which we all too clearly have seen the truth to-day. "How many fearful consequences, what universal misery for its victims!" "See what fire!" said the Tsar, turning to his officers. "Pardon me, Sire," said Kościuszko. "Perhaps I was carried too far--perhaps;" he hesitated. But no, the Tsar hastened to reassure him, he had given the monarch food for thought, he had spoken to his heart. Kościuszko must ask for every comfort he required till he left Petersburg, and must trust Paul "as a friend."[1] [Footnote 1: T. Korzon, _Kościuszko_.]