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Thaddeus of Warsaw: Sobieski

Jane Porter lived when the shadow of this cruel tragedy still darkened the world, and she penned her romance of Thaddeus only nine years after Kosciusko had been taken captive and while he was the idol of the hour. The noble house of Sobieski was intensely patriotic and its loyalty to the ruling monarch, Stanislaus, led not only the palatine, but his grandson, Thaddeus, into the fray.

It was the young man's first glimpse of war and we see him and his grandfather setting forth to battle in the highest of spirits. Before the boy leaves home his mother, the Countess Therese, presents him with a miniature of his father, whom he had previously supposed to be dead; and a letter from which he learns that his unknown parent was an Englishman named Sackville, who, while a guest at "Villanow," the Sobieski estate, married Therese and afterward deserted her. Since his mysterious disappearance nothing has ever been heard of him. In the mean time Thaddeus has been brought up under the name of Sobieski and has given his word never to assume any other.

The discovery that he is of English parentage is a happy one, for our hero's best friend, Pembroke Somerset, is also an Englishman. While traveling through Russia for a holiday Pembroke, for the mere adventure of it, has been persuaded to take up arms against Poland; and would have perished miserably when wounded in battle had he not fallen into the hands of young Sobieski, who from an impulse of pity saves his life and takes him back to "Villanow." Here the stranger is welcomed with all kindness, and so winning is his personality that he speedily becomes a second son in the home.