Stanisław August Poniatowski
Stanisław II August, known also by his regnal Latin name Stanislaus II Augustus, and as Stanisław August Poniatowski, was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1764 to 1795, and the last monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Born into wealthy Polish aristocracy, Poniatowski arrived as a diplomat at the Russian imperial court in Saint Petersburg in 1755 at the age of 22 and became intimately involved with the future empress Catherine the Great. With her aid, he was elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania by the Sejm in September 1764 following the death of Augustus III. Contrary to expectations, Poniatowski attempted to reform and strengthen the large but ailing Commonwealth. His efforts were met with external opposition from neighbouring Prussia, Russia and Austria, all committed to keeping the Commonwealth weak. From within he was opposed by conservative interests, which saw the reforms as a threat to their traditional liberties and privileges granted centuries earlier.
The defining crisis of his early reign was the War of the Bar Confederation that led to the First Partition of Poland. The later part of his reign saw reforms wrought by the Diet and the Constitution of 3 May 1791. These reforms were overthrown by the 1792 Targowica Confederation and by the Polish–Russian War of 1792, leading directly to the Second Partition of Poland, the Kościuszko Uprising and the final and Third Partition of Poland, marking the end of the Commonwealth. Stripped of all meaningful power, Poniatowski abdicated in November 1795 and spent the last years of his life as a captive in Saint Petersburg's Marble Palace.
A controversial figure in Poland's history, he is viewed with ambivalence as a brave and skillful statesman by some and as an overly hesitant coward by others, and even as a traitor. He is criticized primarily for his failure to resolutely stand against opposing forces and prevent the partitions, which led to the destruction of the Polish state. On the other hand, he is remembered as a great patron of arts and sciences who laid the foundation for the Commission of National Education, the first institution of its kind in the world, the Great Sejm of 1788–1792, which led to the Constitution of 3 May 1791 and as a sponsor of many architectural landmarks. Historians tend to agree that, taking the circumstances into account, he was a skillful statesman, pointing out that passing the Constitution was a sign of bravery, although his unwillingness to organize a proper nationwide uprising afterward is seen as cowardice and the key reason for the Second Partition and the subsequent downfall of Poland.
Youth
Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski was born on 17 January 1732 in Wołczyn. He was one of eight surviving children, and the fourth son, of Princess Konstancja Czartoryska and of Count Stanisław Poniatowski, Ciołek coat of arms, Castellan of Kraków. His older brothers were Kazimierz Poniatowski, a Podkomorzy at Court, Franciszek Poniatowski, Canon of Wawel Cathedral who suffered from epilepsy and Aleksander Poniatowski, an officer killed in the Rhineland-Palatinate during the War of the Austrian Succession. His younger brothers were, Andrzej Poniatowski, an Austrian Feldmarschall, Michał Jerzy Poniatowski who became Primate of Poland. His two older and married sisters were Ludwika Zamoyska and Izabella Branicka. Among his nephews was Prince Józef Poniatowski, son of Andrzej. He was a great-grandson of poet and courtier Jan Andrzej Morsztyn and of Lady Catherine Gordon, lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga; thus descended from the Marquesses of Huntly and the Scottish nobility. The Poniatowski family had achieved high status among the Polish nobility of the time.He spent the first few years of his childhood in Gdańsk. He was temporarily kidnapped as a toddler, on the orders of Józef Potocki, Governor of Kiev, as a reprisal for his father's support for King Augustus III and held for some months in Kamieniec-Podolski. He was returned to his parents in Gdańsk. Later he moved with his family to Warsaw. He was initially educated by his mother, then by private tutors, including Russian ambassador Herman Karl von Keyserling. He had few friends in his teenage years and instead developed a fondness for books which continued throughout his life. He went on his first foreign trip in 1748, with elements of the Imperial Russian army as it advanced into the Rhineland to aid Maria Theresia's troops during the War of the Austrian Succession which ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. This enabled Poniatowski both to visit the city, also known as Aachen, and to venture into the Netherlands. On his return journey he stopped in Dresden.
Political career
The following year Poniatowski was apprenticed to the office of Michał Fryderyk Czartoryski, the then Deputy Chancellor of Lithuania. In 1750, he travelled to Berlin where he met a British diplomat, Charles Hanbury Williams, who became his mentor and friend. In 1751, Poniatowski was elected to the Treasury Tribunal in Radom, where he served as a commissioner. He spent most of January 1752 at the Austrian court in Vienna. Later that year, after serving at the Radom Tribunal and meeting King Augustus III of Poland, he was elected deputy of the Sejm. While there his father secured for him the title of Starosta of Przemyśl. In March 1753, he travelled to Hungary and Vienna, where he again met with Williams. He returned to the Netherlands, where he met many key members of that country's political and economic sphere. By late August, he had arrived in Paris, where he moved among the elites. In February 1754, he travelled on to Britain, where he spent some months. There, he was befriended by Charles Yorke, the future Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. He returned to the Commonwealth later that year, however he eschewed the Sejm, as his parents wanted to keep him out of the political furore surrounding the Ostrogski family's land inheritance. The following year he received the title of Stolnik of Lithuania.Poniatowski owed his rise and influence to his family connections with the powerful Czartoryski family and their political faction, known as the Familia, with whom he had grown close. It was the Familia who sent him in 1755 to Saint Petersburg in the service of Williams, who had been nominated British ambassador to Russia.
In Saint Petersburg, Williams introduced Poniatowski to the 26-year-old Catherine Alexeievna, the future empress Catherine the Great. The two became lovers. Whatever his feelings for Catherine, it is likely Poniatowski also saw an opportunity to use the relationship for his own benefit, using her influence to bolster his career.
Poniatowski had to leave St. Petersburg in July 1756 due to court intrigue. Through the combined influence of Catherine, of Russian empress Elizabeth and of chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Poniatowski was able to rejoin the Russian court now as ambassador of Saxony the following January. Still in St Petersburg, he appears to have been a source of intrigue between various European governments, some supporting his appointment, others demanding his withdrawal. He eventually left the Russian capital on 14 August 1758.
Poniatowski attended the Sejms of 1758, 1760, and 1762. He continued his involvement with the Familia, and supported a pro-Russian and anti-Prussian stance in Polish politics. His father died in 1762, leaving him a modest inheritance. In 1762, when Catherine ascended the Russian throne, she sent him several letters professing her support for his own ascension to the Polish throne, but asking him to stay away from St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, Poniatowski hoped that Catherine would consider his offer of marriage, an idea seen as plausible by some international observers. He participated in the failed plot by the Familia to stage a coup d'état against King Augustus III. In August 1763, however, Catherine advised him and the Familia that she would not support a coup as long as King Augustus was alive.
Kingship
Years of hope
Upon the death of Poland's King Augustus III in October 1763, lobbying began for the election of the new king. Catherine threw her support behind Poniatowski. The Russians spent about 2.5m rubles in aid of his election. Poniatowski's supporters and opponents engaged in some military posturing and even minor clashes. In the end, the Russian army was deployed only a few kilometres from the election sejm, which met at Wola near Warsaw. In the event, there were no other serious contenders, and during the convocation sejm on 7 September 1764, 32-year-old Poniatowski was elected king, with 5,584 votes. He swore the pacta conventa on 13 November, and a formal coronation took place in Warsaw on 25 November. The new king's "uncles" in the Familia would have preferred another nephew on the throne, Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, characterized by one of his contemporaries as "débauché, si non dévoyé", but Czartoryski had declined to seek office."Stanisław August", as he now styled himself combining the names of his two immediate royal predecessors, began his rule with only mixed support within the nation. It was mainly the small nobility who favoured his election. In his first years on the throne he attempted to introduce a number of reforms. He founded the Knights School, and began to form a diplomatic service, with semi-permanent diplomatic representatives throughout Europe, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. On 7 May 1765, Poniatowski established the Order of the Knights of Saint Stanislaus, in honour of Saint Stanislaus of Krakow, Bishop and Martyr, Poland's and his own patron saint, as the country's second order of chivalry, to reward Poles and others for noteworthy service to the King. Together with the Familia he tried to reform the ineffective system of government, by reducing the powers of the hetmans and treasurers, moving them to commissions elected by the Sejm and accountable to the King. In his memoirs, Poniatowski called this period the "years of hope." The Familia, which was interested in strengthening its own power base, was dissatisfied with his conciliatory attitude as he reached out to many former opponents of their policies. This uneasy alliance between Poniatowski and the Familia continued for most of the first decade of his rule. One of the points of contention between Poniatowski and the Familia concerned the rights of religious minorities in Poland. Whereas Poniatowski reluctantly supported a policy of religious tolerance, the Familia was opposed to it. The growing rift between Poniatowski and the Familia was exploited by the Russians, who used the issue as a pretext to intervene in the Commonwealth's internal politics and to destabilize the country. Catherine had no wish to see Poniatowski's reform succeed. She had supported his ascent to the throne to ensure the Commonwealth remained a virtual puppet state under Russian control, so his attempts to reform the Commonwealth's ailing government structures were a threat to the status quo.