The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 2Sienkiewicz, Henryk
History
The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 2
Sienkiewicz, Henryk
Historical fiction; Poland -- History -- John II Casimir, 1648-1668 -- Fiction
Lvoff from the moment of the king’s arrival was turned into a real
capital of the Commonwealth. Together with the king came the greater
part of the bishops from the whole country and all those lay senators
who had not served the enemy. The calls already issued summoned also to
arms the nobles of Rus and of the remoter adjoining provinces, they
came in numbers and armed with the greater ease because the Swedes had
not been in those regions. Eyes were opened and hearts rose at sight of
this general militia, for it reminded one in nothing of that of Great
Poland, which at Uistsie offered such weak opposition to the enemy. On
the contrary, in this case marched a warlike and terrible nobility,
reared from childhood on horseback and in the field, amidst continual
attacks of wild Tartars, accustomed to bloodshed and burning, better
masters of the sabre than of Latin. These nobles were in fresh training
yet from Hmelnitski’s uprising, which lasted seven years without
interval, so that there was not a man among them who was not as many
times in fire as he had years of life. New swarms of these were
arriving continually in Lvoff: some had marched from the Byeshchadi
full of precipices, others from the Pruth, the Dniester, and the Seret;
some lived on the steep banks of the Dniester, some on the
wide-spreading Bug; some on the Sinyuha had not been destroyed from the
face of the earth by peasant incursions; some had been left on the
Tartar boundaries;—all these hurried at the call of the king to the
city of the Lion,[3] some to march thence against an enemy as yet
unknown. The nobles came in from Volynia and from more distant
provinces, such hatred was kindled in all souls by the terrible tidings
that the enemy had raised sacrilegious hands on the Patroness of the
Commonwealth in Chenstohova.
And the Cossacks dared not raise obstacles, for the hearts were moved
in the most hardened, and besides, they were forced by the Tartars to
beat with the forehead to the king, and to renew for the hundredth time
their oath of loyalty. A Tartar embassy, dangerous to the enemies of
the king, was in Lvoff under the leadership of Suba Gazi Bey, offering,
in the name of the Khan, a horde a hundred thousand strong to assist
the Commonwealth; of these forty thousand from near Kamenyets could
take the field at once.
Besides the Tartar embassy a legation had come from Transylvania to
carry through negotiations begun with Rakotsy concerning succession to
the throne. The ambassador of the emperor was present; so was the papal
nuncio, who had come with the king. Every day deputations arrived from
the armies of the kingdom and Lithuania, from provinces and lands, with
declarations of loyalty, and a wish to defend to the death the invaded
country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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