Stanisław August Poniatowski

Stanisław II August (born Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski; 17 January 1732 – 12 February 1798), known also by his regnal Latin name Stanislaus II Augustus, and as Stanisław August Poniatowski (Lithuanian: Stanislovas Augustas Poniatovskis), 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 (1768–1772) that led to the First Partition of Poland (1772). The later part of his reign saw reforms wrought by the Diet (1788–1792) 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 (1793), the Kościuszko Uprising (1794) and the final and Third Partition of Poland (1795), 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.

Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski was born on 17 January 1732 in Wołczyn (then in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and now Vowchyn, Belarus). 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 (1721–1800), a Podkomorzy at Court, Franciszek Poniatowski (1723–1749), Canon of Wawel Cathedral who suffered from epilepsy and Aleksander Poniatowski (1725–1744), an officer killed in the Rhineland-Palatinate during the War of the Austrian Succession. His younger brothers were, Andrzej Poniatowski (1734–1773), an Austrian Feldmarschall, Michał Jerzy Poniatowski (1736–94) who became Primate of Poland. His two older and married sisters were Ludwika Zamoyska (1728–1804) and Izabella Branicka (1730–1808). Among his nephews was Prince Józef Poniatowski (1763–1813), 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 (szlachta) 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 (1748). 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.

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 (Polish parliament). 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 (see: fee tail – Ordynacja Ostrogska). 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.