I return to the manner in which the Austrian police behaved to me to hasten my journey.  In this road it is necessary to have your passport examined by each captain of a circle; and every third post you found one of the chief towns of the circle.  They had put up placards in the police offices of all these towns that a strict eye must be kept on me as I passed through.  If it was not for the singular impertinence of treating a female in this manner, and that a female who had been persecuted for doing justice to Germany, one could not help laughing at the excess of stupidity which could publish in capital letters measures of police, the whole strength of which consists in their secrecy.  It reminded me of M. de Sartines, who had formerly proposed to give spies a livery.  It is not that the director of all these absurdities is, as some say, devoid of understanding:  but he has such a strong desire to please the French government, that he even seeks to do himself honor by his meannesses, as publickly as possible.  This proclaimed inspection was executed with as much ingenuity as it was conceived:  a corporal, or a clerk, or perhaps both together, came to look at my carriage, smoking their pipes, and when they had gone the round of it, they went their way without even deigning to tell me if there was any thing the matter with it; if they had done that, they would have been at least good for something.  I made very slow progress to wait for the Russian passport, now my only means of safety in the circumstances in which I was placed.  One morning I turned out of my road to go and see a ruined castle, which belonged to the princess Lubomirska.  To get to it, I had to go over roads, of which, without having travelled in Poland, it is impossible to form an idea.  In the middle of a sort of desert which I was crossing alone with my son, a person on horseback saluted me in French; I wished to answer him, but he was already at a distance.  I cannot express the effect which the sound of that dear language produced upon me, at a moment so cruel.  Ah! if the French were but once free, how one would love them! they would then be the first themselves to despise their allies.  I descended into the court yard of this castle, which was entirely in ruins.  The keeper, with his wife and children, came to meet me, and embraced my knees.  I caused them to be informed by a bad interpreter, that I knew the princess Lubomirska; that name was sufficient to inspire them with confidence; they had no doubt of the truth of what I said, although I travelled with a very shabby equipage.  They introduced me into a sort of hall, which resembled a prison, and at the moment of my entrance, one of the women came into it to burn perfumes.  They had neither white bread nor meat, but an exquisite Hungarian wine, and every where the wrecks of magnificence stood by the side of the greatest misery.  This contrast is of frequent recurrence in Poland:  there are no beds, even in houses fitted up with the most finished elegance.  Every thing appears sketched in this country, and nothing terminated in it; but what one can never sufficiently praise is the goodness of the people, and the generosity of the great:  both are easily excited by all that is good and beautiful, and the agents whom Austria sends there seem like wooden men in the midst of this flexible nation.