the attempt, it was vain.  Having three such powers as Russia, Prussia, and Austria against her, Poland, unsupported by allies and otherwise hampered, was too weak to hold her own.  Without inquiring into the causes and the faults committed by her commanders, without dwelling on or even enumerating the vicissitudes of the struggle, I shall pass on to the terrible closing scene of the drama—­the siege and fall of Praga, the suburb of Warsaw, and the subsequent massacre.  The third partition (October 24, 1795), in which each of the three powers took her share, followed as a natural consequence, and Poland ceased to exist as an independent state.  Not, however, for ever; for when in 1807 Napoleon, after crushing Prussia and defeating Russia, recast at Tilsit to a great extent the political conformation of Europe, bullying King Frederick William III and flattering the Emperor Alexander, he created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, over which he placed as ruler the then King of Saxony.

Now let us see how Nicholas Chopin fared while these whirlwinds passed over Poland.  The threatening political situation and the consequent general insecurity made themselves at once felt in trade, indeed soon paralysed it.  What more particularly told on the business in which the young Lorrainer was engaged was the King’s desertion of the national cause, which induced the great and wealthy to leave Warsaw and betake themselves for shelter to more retired and safer places.  Indeed, so disastrous was the effect of these occurrences on the Frenchman’s tobacco manufactory that it had to be closed.  In these circumstances Nicholas Chopin naturally thought of returning home, but sickness detained him.  When he had recovered his health, Poland was rising under Kosciuszko.  He then joined the national guard, in which he was before long promoted to the rank of captain.  On the 5th of November, 1794, he was on duty at Praga, and had not his company been relieved a few hours before the fall of the suburb, he would certainly have met there his death.  Seeing that all was lost he again turned his thoughts homewards, when once more sickness prevented him from executing his intention.  For a time he tried to make a living by teaching French, but ere long accepted an engagement as tutor in the family—­then living in the country—­of the Staroscina Laczynska, who meeting him by chance had been favourably impressed by his manners and accomplishments.  In passing we may note that among his four pupils (two girls and two boys) was one, Mary, who afterwards became notorious by her connection with Napoleon I., and by the son that sprang from this connection, Count Walewski, the minister of Napoleon III.  At the beginning of this century we find Nicholas Chopin at Zelazowa Wola, near Sochaczew, in the house of the Countess Skarbek, as tutor to her son Frederick.  It was there that he made the acquaintance of Justina Krzyzanowska, a young lady of noble but poor family, whom he married in the year 1806, and who became the