A dowerless damsel possessed of no influential relatives is not in a position to be exacting, and, whate'er befell, poor outlawed Stanislas Poniatowski could not have taken up arms in defence of his daughter.

They were familiar to her, she said, for she knew several of Poniatowski's officers, and they had spoken of my doings.

A squadron of Poniatowski's Polish Lancers are in front of us.

The Polish Bayard, prince Joseph Poniatowski (1763-1814).

Prince Poniatowski, late favorite of the Empress Catherine, was elected by the Polish Diet; in discouragement and sadness, four thousand nobles only had responded to the letters of convocation.

[Footnote 3: Perhaps Monsieur Palmquist is the form in which these 'Grave, Serious, Designing Men in their Way' have picked up the name of Charles's brave general, Count Poniatowski, to whom he owed his escape after the battle of Pultowa, and who won over Turkey to support his failing fortunes.

Count Poniatowski, with whom I was acquainted when he was here, is King of Poland, and calls himself Stanislaus the Second.

See the picture Poniatowski, one of her earliest and most ardent slaves, paints of the young Grand Duchess.

But Soltykoff's reign was short; the fickle Princess, ever seeking fresh conquests, wearied of him as of all her lovers in turn, and his place was taken within a year by Stanislas Poniatowski, a fascinating young Pole, who returned to St Petersburg with a reputation of gallantry won in almost every Court of Europe.

Poniatowski had not perhaps the physical perfections of his dethroned predecessor, but he had the well-stored brain that made an even more potent appeal to Catherine.

When at last a political storm drove Poniatowski from Russia, Catherine, who never forgot a banished lover, secured for him the crown of Poland.

With Poniatowski away in Poland, Catherine cast her eyes round her Court to find a third favourite, and her choice was soon made, for of all her army of admirers there was one who fully satisfied her ideal of handsome manhood.

No greater contrast could be possible than between this dare-devil son of Anak and the cultured, almost feminine Poniatowski; but Catherine loved, above all things, variety, and here it was in startling abundance.

He told the story of the great battle, the frantic effort against combined Europe of the crippled French, the defection of the Saxons in the midst of the fight, the final driving of Napoleon across the Elster, the death of Poniatowski and the retreat to France.