Lumen 2018

S TANISLAUS P APCZYNSKI 38 “And, so, there entered Rome, a procession of three hundred peo- ple, twenty carriages, thirty mules, and ten camels; everything glis- tening with gold, precious stones, and diamonds; the tassels, the plumes, the buttons, the buckles, the golden nets, the fringes, the satins, the velvets, the sable and lynx furs, the scimitars, the arches, the casques — all shimmering with fabulous colors, sumptuous and splendid ...; there entered, glimmering in the sun, the Polish aristo- crats, the sons of the most prominent families of the Republic of Poland ... Ossolinski himself wore a coat embroidered with gold, held together by twenty buttons made of large diamonds. His shoul- ders were covered by a sable fur cape, the beret on his head was adorned with a tuft of egret feathers, streaming in the breeze, and a shining, expensive brooch. A scimitar, all covered in precious stones, was attached to his side, and he rode on a grey steed adorned with chrysotiles and black feathers in diamond mountings. To this day, stories are being told here about the horses of the Polish visitors los- ing their golden shoes (poorly fastened on purpose) and the Roman common folk fighting to pick them up. That is what the Republic of Poland was like in those times.” 22 But those were not carefree times at all. People died in battles by the thousands as, for example, during the battle of Warka on the Pil- ica River (November 7, 1656), when the armies of Czarniecki 23 killed several thousand of the select Swedish soldiers. The river, red with blood, was filled with their bodies. 24 The soldiers also died outside the battlefields, and they were not protected by any international conventions. On August 28, 1656, at Trzemeszna (today Strze- meszna near Rawa), Czarniecki’s division crushed a strong Swedish formation which tried to force its way through to Prussia after its king. Whoever managed to escape from the battlefield to seek shelter in the woods, would often die there at the hands of the peasants. 25 Those were the times of battlefield madness. One of those who gave in to such madness was George Rakoczy, Prince of Transylvania (1648-1660), who attacked Poland in 1657. In revenge for his plun- dering of Poland, George Lubomirski 26 destroyed Rakoczy’s estates