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CHAPTER XXI

From the Conclusion of the Seven Years' War, to the Final Partition of Poland.

THE "seven years' war," the principal features of which we have given, left most of the contending powers in a state of great exhaustion, but none had been more affected by it than France. While that country, however, was declining, Russia, under the empress Catherine II., was rapidly acquiring a preponderating influence among the nations of Europe; and no opportunity of adding to her already extensive territories was ever neglected. On the death of Augustus III., king of Poland, the diet assembled at Warsaw to choose a successor. Catherine espoused the cause of Stanislaus Poniatowsky; and as the discussions were not conducted with the temper which ought to characterise deliberative assemblies, the prudent empress, as a friend and neighbor, sent a body of troops thither to keep the peace. This had the desired effect, and Stanislaus ascended the throne. But Poland had long been agitated by disputes, both religious and political; and the new sovereign was unable to control the elements of discord by which he was surrounded. The animosity which existed between the catholics and the dissidents, as the dissenting sects were called, had risen to a height incompatible with the safety of the kingdom. The dissidents, who had been much oppressed by the catholics, claimed an equality of rights, which being refused, they appealed to foreign powers for protection-those of the Greek church to the empress of Russia, and the Lutherans to the kings of Prussia and Denmark. A civil war now arose in all its horrors; and its miseries were greatly aggravated by the insolence and brutality of the Russian troops which Catherine had sent to the aid of the dissidents. The catholic nobles formed a confederacy for the maintenance of their privileges and their religion : but it was useless to contend against the overwhelming forces brought against them. Cracow, where they for a long time held out against famine and pestilence, was at length taken by storm, and the unhappy fugitives were pursued beyond the Turkish frontiers.