The partition of this fine kingdom by its powerful neighbours, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, was the first open and audacious transgression of the law of nations, which disgraced the annals of civilized Europe. It was executed by a combination of three of the most powerful states of Europe against one too unhappy in the nature of its constitution, and too much divided by factions to offer any effectual resistance. The kingdom subjected to this aggression had appealed in vain to the code of nations for protection against an outrage, to which, after a desultory and uncombined, and therefore a vain defence, she saw herself under the necessity of submitting. The Poles retained, too, a secret sense of their fruitless attempt to recover freedom in 1791, and an animated recollection of the violence by which it had been suppressed by the Russian arms. They waited with hope and exultation the approach of the French armies; and candour must allow, that, unlawfully subjected as they had been to a foreign yoke, they had a right to avail themselves of the assistance, not only of Napoleon, but of Mahomet, or of Satan himself, had he proposed to aid them in regaining the independence of which they had been oppressively and unjustly deprived.[258] This feeling was general among the middling classes of the Polish aristocracy, who recollected with mortified pride the diminution of their independent privileges, the abrogation of their Diets, and the suppression of the _Liberum Veto_, by which a private gentleman might render null the decision of a whole assembly, unless unanimity should be attained, by putting the dissentient to death upon the spot.[259] But the higher order of nobility, gratified by the rank they held, and the pleasures they enjoyed at the courts of Berlin, Vienna, and especially at Petersburgh, preferred in general the peaceful enjoyment of their immense estates to the privileges of a stormy independence, which raised the most insignificant of the numerous aristocracy to a rank and importance nearly resembling their own. They might, too, with some justice, distrust the views of Napoleon, though recommended by the most specious promises. The dominion of Russia, in particular, from similarity of manners, and the particular attention paid to their persons and interests, was not so unpopular among the higher branches of the aristocracy as might have been expected, from the unjust and arbitrary mode in which she had combined to appropriate so large a part of their once independent kingdom. These did not, therefore, so generally embrace the side of France as the minor nobles or gentry had done. As for the ordinary mass of the population, being almost all in the estate of serfage, or villanage, which had been general over Europe during the prevalence of the feudal system, they followed their respective lords, without pretending to entertain any opinion of their own. [Sidenote: ADDRESSES FROM POLAND.]