He went down in history as one of the greatest traitors in the history of Poland - he was a co-creator of the famous Targowica and was instrumental in the partitions. But he also experienced betrayal himself. And many times. It was said that none of the dozen official children of Szczęsny Potocki was his. The only one, whose paternity he could be (reasonably) certain, died in the womb of his mother, murdered by the nobleman's parents ...
In the case of Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki, to say that he had bad luck in love is to say nothing. Although at one time he was considered the best party in the Polish nobility (he was to inherit the greatest fortune in Poland), it did not translate into luck in his personal life.
Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki with his sons Stanisław and Szczęsny Jerzy. But were they actually the fruit of his loins? Some people doubt this because wives have notoriously cheated on a fabulously wealthy noble.
Perhaps it was partly due to the nobleman's not very volatile mind. As historian Jerzy Łojek wrote about him, Stanisław "developed his mind extremely slowly, and finally stopped at a level just exceeding the limits of idleness "And his IQ was" less than a hundred. "
Combined with fabulous wealth and enormous influence, it could not lead to anything good. Indeed, his life was marked by a tragedy very early.
A tragic end to a certain mesallion
Ludwik Cieszkowski, a diarist sympathetic to the aristocrat, wrote about him:“He was a dignified and virtuous man. But he got that name of Szczęsny very inappropriately, because throughout almost his entire life he experienced various misfortunes and mortifications ”. And he was quite right. Perhaps Szczęsny Potocki would not have become a treacher of the Polish nation if ... he had not fallen in love.
Cupid's arrow caught him when - as one version says - wanting to shelter from the storm, he found himself in the estate of his neighbors, the Komorowski family. At first sight, he fell in love with the hosts' daughter, Gertrude. The sixteen-year-old lady also had a passionate love for the young nobleman.
There was only one problem - although Gertrude was equal to Stanisław in her condition, but not in her property anymore. Her parents were definitely too poor by Potocki's "standards", so at least from their perspective, marriage was out of the question . This, of course, did not prevent the young from throwing themselves into a whirlwind of passion. It did not take long for the effects of the love of love to emerge. Adam Węgłowski describes:
When Gertrude got pregnant, there was no way out:Potocki secretly married the girl and then revealed his secret to his parents. They went berserk. They dreamed that thanks to their influence and money, the son might even sit on the Polish throne in the future, and here is such a disappointment! They decided to annul the marriage, claiming that the girl had ensnared an inexperienced and panicked young man.
In the queue to the altar there were already maidens from the more eminent families:Poniatowski, Lubomirski and Mniszch. Only that the annulment of the marriage was not to Komorowski's taste - they did not want to risk being laughed at.
Gertruda Komorowska on a sleigh, a painting by Leon Wyczółkowski from 1883
Then the groom's parents had a "wonderful" idea - decided to kidnap his young, pregnant wife, put her in a convent, and then force her to divorce . They were not even stopped by the fact that the relatives of Gertrude, to protect her from Potocki's attempts, hid her in the manor house in Nowy Siola near Lviv.
Siepacze Potocki - Cossacks disguised as Russian soldiers - on February 13, 1771, they attacked the hideout and kidnapped the girl on a sleigh at night. Bad luck (or the order of their principals) meant that Gertrude suffocated, crushed by pillows (or deliberately murdered by the kidnappers). They threw the body into the nearest ice hole.
Show suicide
What was Stanisław doing at that time? In her latest book, "The Life and Romance of Polish Aristocrats", Iwona Kienzler reports:
(...) learning about the tragic fate of his young wife, tried to commit suicide, but there was more hysteria than despair in that - the young man locked himself in the privy and tried to cut his throat with a horse, shouting at the same time, thanks to which the servants had time to intervene.
Earlier, at the instigation of his parents, he had managed to file a lawsuit for annulment of the marriage, thereby renouncing Gertrude and their unborn child (even if he acknowledged paternity, under the then law the descendant of Miss Komorowska and Potocki would not have any rights to the title or property).
However, the Komorowski family did not intend to give up on their rich neighbors. Especially when Gertrude's body was found in the spring. They demanded that the Potocki family be punished and that the damage be compensated. The trial dragged on for years and ended with a settlement - Stanisław paid his former in-laws a generous compensation that allowed them to wipe their tears after the loss of their daughter.
Meanwhile, Szczęsny had already forgotten about his beloved and on December 1, 1774 he again stood on the wedding carpet . This time his wife was Józefina Amalia Mniszchówna, who had been previously chosen by his parents. Although they had been dead for some time, his son did not dare to go against their will. As described by Iwona Kienzler:
Unfortunately, the marriage was doomed to failure from the beginning, as there was an intellectual gap between the spouses. The beautiful Józefina was a real intellectual, very artistically talented - she painted and wrote quite good comedies, which even King Stanisław August Poniatowski admired.
The pretty woman wrapped her stupid husband around her finger without any problems and Stanisław Szczęsny quickly fell in love with her, he even wrote poems for her that only aroused a smile of pity in his wife.
The first stag of the noble Republic
Szczęsny Potocki did not live up to the task - not only intellectually, but also in an alcove. Thus, full of temperament, Josephine looked for an outlet for lust in the arms of other men, not hiding much about it. Among others, Józef Kłębowski, Marshal of the court of Mrs Potocka, Major General Melchior Dzierżański and commander of the court militia in Tulczyn (where Stanisław's family seat was located) Tadeusz Mossakowski.
It happened that Józefina went on a trip abroad alone and returned blessed. Out of eleven children of the Potocki family, only the eldest three were to be the fruit of Szczęsny's loins (and some people even doubt it). And again Cieszkowski was right when he wrote:"Szczęsny was unhappy with his wives, he lost his beloved, he endured the commanded".
He only endured until - when his paths crossed in 1791 in Jassy with Zofia Wittowa, the misfortune of Grigory Potemkin, he decided without regret to part with his second wife. His heart belonged to another. He managed to get a divorce from Józefina at the beginning of 1798 (two years earlier he had bought the freedom of a new bride, who was married to Józef Witt, for a considerable sum), and in April he changed his marital status for the third time.
Potocki's third wife, Zofia Wittowa, turned out to be even more promiscuous than her predecessor. She got into an affair with her own stepson.
He fell into the gutter from the rain. Iwona Kienzler in the book "Życie i romanse Polish aristocrats" describes:
His third wife turned out to be even more promiscuous than Josephine. After the wedding, she gave Szczęsny five more children:Aleksander, Mieczysław, Zofia, Olga and Bolesław, and he was probably the father of three of them.
Interestingly, the youngest of the bunch, Bolesław, (...) was actually ... his grandson . It so happened that Zofia Potocka (...) got involved in an affair with her husband's eldest son; the fruit of his relationship with Józefina née Mniszech, Szczęsny Jerzy. Her stepson and lover was sixteen years younger than she was.
Is it the scandalous act of adultery of the wife and son that brought Stanisław to the grave? It is not known. He died suddenly on March 14, 1805, without awaiting the birth of Bolesław. The post-mortem examination revealed that he had "rotting kidneys, which, according to doctors, was due to the excessive use of diabolin candies, to a lewd stimulant matter."
According to reports, before his death, he asked to be buried with a portrait of Gertrude Komorowska. The only wife who remained faithful to him to his death…
Bibliography:
- I. Kienzler, The Life and Romance of Polish Aristocrats , Bellona 2021.
- Z. Kuchowicz, Old Polish customs in the 17th – 18th centuries , Łódź Publishing House 1977.
- A. Leszczyński, Szczęsny Potocki:a traitor over traitors , "Ale Historia" (accessed on:15/02/2021).
- J. Łojek, The story of a traitor. Szczęsny Potocki , ALFA 1995.
- J. Łojek, Descendants of Szczęsny. The history of the fortune of the Potocki family from Tulczyn , Publishing House Lubelskie 1980.
- A. Węgłowski, Szczęsny Potocki:a little king in Russia , "Przekrój" (access:15/02/2021).