The streets of stately breadth, formed of palaces in the finest Italian taste and wooden huts which at every moment threatened to tumble down on the heads of the inmates; in these buildings Asiatic pomp and Greenland dirtin strange union, an ever-bustling population, forming, like a masked procession, the most striking contrasts.  Long-bearded Jews, and monks in all kinds of habits; nuns of the strictest discipline, entirely veiled and wrapped in meditation; and in the large squares troops of young Polesses in light-coloured silk mantles engaged in conversation; venerable old Polish gentlemen with moustaches, caftan, girdle, sword, and yellow and red boots; and the new generation in the most incroyable Parisian fashion.  Turks, Greeks, Russians, Italians, and French in an ever-changing throng; moreover, an exceedingly tolerant police that interfered nowise with the popular amusements, so that in squares and streets there moved about incessantly Pulchinella theatres, dancing bears, camels, and monkeys, before which the most elegant carriages as well as porters stopped and stood gaping.

Thus pictures J. E. Hitzig, the biographer of E. Th.  A. Hoffmann, and himself a sojourner in Warsaw, the life of the Polish capital in 1807.  When Nicholas Chopin saw it first the spectacle in the streets was even more stirring, varied, and brilliant; for then Warsaw was still the capital of an independent state, and the pending and impending political affairs brought to it magnates from all the principal courts of Europe, who vied with each other in the splendour of their carriages and horses, and in the number and equipment of their attendants.

In the introductory part of this work I have spoken of the misfortunes that befel Poland and culminated in the first partition.  But the buoyancy of the Polish character helped the nation to recover sooner from this severe blow than could have been expected.  Before long patriots began to hope that the national disaster might be turned into a blessing.  Many circumstances favoured the realisation of these hopes.  Prussia, on discovering that her interests no longer coincided with those of her partners of 1772, changed sides, and by-and-by even went the length of concluding a defensive and offensive alliance with the Polish Republic.  She, with England and other governments, backed Poland against Russia and Austria.  Russia, moreover, had to turn her attention elsewhere.  At the time of Nicholas Chopin’s arrival, Poland was dreaming of a renascence of her former greatness, and everyone was looking forward with impatience to the assembly of the Diet which was to meet the following year.  Predisposed by sympathy, he was soon drawn into the current of excitement and enthusiasm that was surging around him.  Indeed, what young soul possessed of any nobleness could look with indifference on a nation struggling for liberty and independence.  As he took a great interest in the debates and transactions