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The church seemed to be full of breathless whisperings, as if it watched and listened while I moved over to Stanislaus and tipped him backward. He is a rather heavy and sizable boy for all his saintly slimness. Up in the hollow inside, in the crook of his arm, lay the oilskin package he had kept these long years through, waiting for to-night.
The landlord looked at him shrewdly a little, then said with respect: "But what is your grace doing in such a garb?" Stanislaus thought for a moment that he was recognized; but he put on a bold front, and laughed as he said: "I am not 'your grace. I am what you see me, and I have a long journey to make."
Prussia, jealous of the emperor's greatness, declined any active participation. Most of the other powers of Europe also remained neutral. France had now no hope of placing Stanislaus upon the throne; she only sought revenge, determined to humble the house of Austria. The mercenary King of Sardinia, Charles Emanuel, was willing to serve the one who would pay the most.
I heard of the valiant Kosciusko, the good Stanislaus, and the palatine Sobieski, with his brave grandson, spoken of in the same breath. I durst not surmise who this grandson was; I dared not ask I dreaded to know.
In one he is shown carrying on his arm two or three bits of wood towards the kitchen. Underneath is written, "He will err if he carry more." The painting commemorates an occasion when Stanislaus and Claude Acquaviva were put by the cook to carry wood and told to carry only two or three pieces at a time.
Paul was the worst at this teasing; nor did it stop at mere teasing. He was not a really bad fellow, but he was selfish, set upon having his own will in everything, and had a very quick and fierce temper. Stanislaus' quiet refusal to join in the noisy revels of himself and his companions, his unaffected piety, his long hours of prayer, were things he could not understand.
Farther on the Stanislaus River, rushing down from the Sierra, would crook its current, to run, swift and turbulent, beyond the screen of alders and willows. The road ascended, and on a hillcrest he again halted and looked back, listening. Unimpeded by trees, the thick air holding all sound close to the earth, he could hear far-distant noises.
His eyes were bright and joyful. He stretched out his arms, fell back, and died with a smile upon his lips. Our Lady had come for him, and with her he went home. Dawn was breaking on the Feast of the Assumption, 1568. Stanislaus lacked six or eight weeks of being eighteen years old when he died. He had not been a preacher or writer or engaged in any public work.
The state of affairs in Poland presented a tempting opportunity for interference which might lead to a division of the kingdom. Stanislaus II, King of Poland, had been elected in 1764, mainly through the influence of Russia he was one of Catharine II's lovers. His people had risen against him when Russia adopted her policy of spoliation.
She was at the same time suffering disseverment at her own hands through her intestine divisions and the mutual jealousy of her chiefs. In Warsaw the confederates had attempted to carry off King Stanislaus Augustus, whom they accused of betraying the cause of the fatherland; they had declared the throne vacant, and took upon themselves to found an hereditary monarchy.
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