Elżbieta "Izabela" Dorota Czartoryska ( von Flemming; 31 March 1745 – 15 July 1835) was a Polish countess and princess, writer, art collector, and prominent figure in the Polish Enlightenment. She was the wife of Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and a member of the influential Familia political party. She is also known for having founded in 1796 Poland's first museum, the Czartoryski Museum, now located in Kraków.

Early life

thumb|Blue Palace in Warsaw, by [[Bernardo Bellotto|Barnardo Bellotto 1779.]]She was the daughter and the only child of Count Georg Detlev von Flemming () and Princess Antonina Czartoryska (1728–1746). Her son Adam Jerzy Czartoryski wrote in his memoirs that prior to the marriage, 16-year-old Izabela fell ill with smallpox and that his aunt, groom's sister Elżbieta Izabela Lubomirska, in horror at the bride's pockmarked face, tried in vain to prevent the marriage to her brother. Czartoryski had a vast estate, was known for his elegance, was a connoisseur of literature and art, wrote plays himself, spoke over a dozen languages, including Arabic, Turkish and Persian, and was a future commander of the Corps of Cadets. The real reason for the wedding, was to bind two influential families who were related to each other. Georg Detlov Flemming gave his daughter Izabela 800,000 zlotys and extensive estates as a dowry.

After the wedding, the young couple settled in Oleszyce (now in the Carpathian Voivodeship) and spent the winter months in the Blue Palace (pl. Pałac Błękitny, Palais Zamoysky) in Warsaw. The Princess felt uncomfortable there – her husband treated her disrespectfully, and she had to endure humiliation from her sister-in-law Izabela Lubomirska. However, she enjoyed the affection of her cousin, the future King of Poland Stanisław Poniatowski, who defended her and later became one of her lovers.

thumb|Izabela Czartoryska, by [[Ludwik Marteau|Louis Marteau ca. 1761]]

Feeling uncomfortable in her estates, the Princess traveled abroad with her husband, accompanying him disguised as a male page. This sometimes caused misunderstandings; for example, in Frankfurt am Main she was mistaken for a Danish prince, and in Mainz she even became the victim of sexual harassment by an older woman. These trips played a significant role in Czartoryska's intellectual development, which her husband also encouraged. Together they visited Jean-Jacques Rousseau and were also entertained in the salons of the French aristocracy.

She was rumored to have had an affair with the Russian ambassador to Poland, Nikolai Vasilyevich Repnin, who was alleged to have fathered her son Adam George Czartoryski. She had also an affair with the Armand Louis de Gontaut, Duke de Lauzun, who says himself in his "Mémoires" he fathered her second son Konstanty Adam.

In Paris in 1772, she met Benjamin Franklin, subsequently a leader of the American Revolution, and the French philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire, who were bringing new ideas to the old order.thumb|Princess Izabela Czartoryski, unknown artist 1760's-1770's.

thumb|Izabela Czartoryska, by [[Jean-Pierre Norblin de La Gourdaine|Jan Piotr Norblin 1785]]

Even during the lifetime of Augustus III, who died in 1763, the Czartoryski party, the Familia, sought to seize power in Poland with Russian support. Prince Adam Casimir was initially proposed as the new king, and was also encouraged to ascend the Polish throne by Tsar Peter III during his visit to Saint Petersburg in 1762. Adam Casimir, who was more interested in literature, art, and science, declined, claiming that he did not feel capable of taking responsibility for a state sinking into anarchy. Empress Catherine II, who took power in Russia after the overthrow and murder of her husband Peter III, also rejected his candidacy. She feared that his wealth and intellectual talents would make him too independent; he also knew from his Warsaw envoy Nikolai Repnin and King Frederick II of Prussia that the Czartoryskis intended to abolish the liberum veto and introduce reforms that would threaten Russia's dominance in the state. Finally, in 1765, the new ruler was also Stanisław Poniatowski, a former favorite of Catherine, who belonged to the family and took the name Stanisław August after his coronation; husband Adam Kazimierz had to be content with the post of marshal of the convocation sejm.

After the election of the new ruler, Izabela and her husband continued their active social life in Warsaw. They performed together in amateur plays at the Théâtre de Société, which was held in the Kazimierzowski Palace (now the site of the University of Warsaw). Although the 19-year-old Czartoryska was not particularly striking in appearance, she often played love roles in these plays and also began a brief affair with the theater director Count Alojzy Fryderyk von Brühl. Despite this brief relationship, this period also marked, according to Gabriela Pauszer-Klonowska, the beginning of a genuine rapprochement and budding love between the couple, who had previously considered their marriage more of a business. The couple remained together until the end of Adam Kazimierz's life, although both continued to have numerous extramarital affairs.

thumb|Izabela Czartoryska 1772 in a medal.

In 1765, the Princess gave birth to her first daughter, Teresa. According to contemporaries, she became very beautiful after giving birth. Giacomo Casanova, who met the Czartoryskis that same year, wrote that "the prince married a very beautiful woman, but he has not yet had a child with her, because she is too thin for him", which would suggest that Teresa was perhaps the result of an affair. One of the memoirs of the time stated: "There was an indescribable grace in her gaze and movements", and according to Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz (adjutant to Prince Adam Kazimierz), "nothing could compare with the brilliance of her black eyes and the whiteness of her sex". From then on, Izabela became one of the magnets of Warsaw's social life.

Czartoryska herself assessed her physical condition quite highly later, at the age of 35, writing about it as follows:

<blockquote>I have never been beautiful, but I have often been pretty. I have beautiful eyes, and because they reflect all the feelings of the soul, my face can be fascinating. I am quite white, my forehead is smooth and flawless, my nose is neither ugly nor beautiful, my mouth is large, my teeth are white, my smile is pleasant, and my face is beautifully oval. I have enough hair to easily adorn my head; it is as dark as my eyebrows. I am rather tall than short, my waist is slender, my chest perhaps too thin, my hands are ugly, but my legs are lovely, and my movements are very graceful. My faces are similar in this respect – the greatest charm of both depended on the skill with which I was able to double their value. In my youth I was very flirtatious; I am less so every day, although my feminine gender sometimes still reminds me that pleasing others is a great charm in itself.</blockquote>

thumb|Izabela Czartoryska, by [[Maria Cosway 1790.]]

Probably around 1765, Czartoryska's affection for her cousin "Antoś" (i.e. King Stanisław August Poniatowski) developed into a deeper love. Izabela's relationship with Stanisław was widely known in Warsaw. Her husband also knew about it and tolerated the affair, even driving the duchess to the castle to meet the king, while she herself sought love affairs elsewhere. The fruit of Czartoryska's and Poniatowski's union was a daughter, Maria Anna, who later became a writer, born in March 1768 and was maliciously called "Ciołkówna" on the street (Ciołek was Stanisław August Poniatowski's coat of arms and also his contemptuous nickname).

At the same time, Izabela Czartoryska began an affair with the Russian envoy Nikolai Repnin, who represented Catherine II's interests in Warsaw and was tasked with thwarting Polish reform efforts at the time. Isabella gave in to Repnin, for whom she had no feelings, at the request of the king and her husband Adam, who hoped to curry favor with the envoy. On Ash Wednesday, 4 March 1767 Czartoryska and Repnin caused a widespread uproar in Warsaw when Repnin rented an entire theatre, which should normally have been closed that day, and ordered a French comedy to be performed for himself, Izabela, and the staff of the legation. Finally, on 14 October 1767, the Princess unwittingly contributed to one of the greatest crimes committed by Russia in 18th-century Poland. When the king learned of the plans of the Bishop of Kraków, Kajetan Sołtyk, to launch a crusade against the Dissenters, he asked Isabella to arrange a joint meeting with Repnin. As a result of this meeting, at the king's request, Kajetan Sołtyk, the Crown Field Hetman Wacław Rzewuski, his son Seweryn Rzewuski, and the Bishop of Kiev Józef Załuski were kidnapped and exiled to Kaluga in Russia.

thumb|Izabela Czartoryska as the gardener Marianne "dans le Celenie", by [[Jean-Pierre Norblin de La Gourdaine|Jean-Pierre Norblin 1779-1780.]]

Nikolai Repnin's humiliations and Russian interference in Polish internal affairs eventually led to the establishment of the Confederation of Bari in February 1768 and the outbreak of the uprising. Izabela and husband Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, wishing to avoid the threat of battle, spent part of this time traveling around Europe. At the same time, on 10 April 1769, Empress Catherine II dismissed Nikolai Repnin from his post. The reason for the separation was the Empress's dissatisfaction with the insufficient protection of Russian interests in Poland, but also the ambassador's relationship with Czartoryski. Repnin, who initially considered the relationship a fleeting fling, fell in love with Izabela. From this union, on 14 January 1770, the Princess's firstborn son, Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, was born, who later became a politician and the leader of the Hôtel Lambert group in Paris. Izabela discovered the talent of the young painter Aleksander Orłowski and financed him.

thumb|Czartoryski Palace seen from [[Vistula|River Vistula, by A. Leroix early 19th century.]]

While in Prussia with her daughter Maria Wirtemberska for the latter's marriage with Duke Louis of Württemberg, 28 October 1784 in Siedlce, she visited Frederick II at his Potsdam residence at Sanssouci In 1784, she joined the Patriotic Party.

In 1790, Isabella began construction of the Marynka Palace in Puławy, where her daughter Maria and son-in-law Louis would reside. Designed by the Puławy architect Christian Piotr Aigner and preserved in the classicist style, the building has survived to this day within the park and palace complex and forms one of its most valuable parts. The Latin inscription on the portico frieze reads "Iste terrarum mihi praeter omnes angulus ridet" ("Of all the corners of the earth, this one smiles upon me most"), intended to attest to the deep bond between Maria, Puławy, and her family. Construction progressed rapidly; by 1792, the floors had been installed and the metalwork was underway. However, the couple never lived in the palace, which later served mainly as a guest house for the Czartoryski family.

thumb|Marynka Palace in Puławy, 1791–1796, in 1850's.

Politics and theatre

At the turn of 1784/1785 the Czartoryski family fell victim to the so-called Dogrum affair. The perpetrator of the scandal was a certain Maria Teresa d'Ugrumoff, who was commonly known as Dogrumowa. Knowing of the antagonism between the king and the Czartoryski family, she decided to provoke an open confrontation between them. First, she told the king in an audience that she knew of an assassination plot in which Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski was allegedly involved. The king did not believe the accusation and dismissed her empty-handed, she went to Prince Adam and told him that the king was planning an assassination attempt against him, to be carried out by the royal butler Franciszek Ryx and General Jan Komarzewski. Adam Czartoryski believed the accusation; it led to the imprisonment of Ryx and Komarzewski, who in turn filed a defamation lawsuit against Czartoryski's supporters. The case caused a huge uproar in Warsaw at the time, with the population divided between supporters of Prince Adam and those convinced that the accusations were false and that the alleged assassination was Dogrum's invention. The trial, which ended in April 1785, decided in favor of the latter – Dogrum was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Gdańsk Fortress for defamation (he was released after the Second Partition of Germany and the Prussian occupation of Gdańsk), and the alleged assassins were acquitted of the charges. The king's nephew Stanisław Poniatowski later assumed in his memoirs that the Russian ambassador to Warsaw, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg, was actually behind Dogrum's actions and intended to eventually divide the king and the family.

The Dogrum affair and the lost lawsuit, which cost Prince Adam almost 4 million zlotys, further deepened the Czartoryski family's resentment towards the king. Izabela Lubomirska, Adam Czartoryski's sister, who had been on his side during the affair, left the country and never returned, while the Czartoryski family and their entire court moved to Puławy.

The Dogrum affair also left a lasting impression on Princess Izabela, as it initiated a gradual transformation of her character from a woman primarily interested in entertainment to a patriot who considered herself devoted to her homeland. Having shown little interest in politics in her youth, she now decided to work actively alongside her husband and gather the anti-royal opposition in Puławy. In the summer of 1786, Adam Kazimierz traveled to Volhynia, Podolia, and Ukraine, ostensibly to inspect the estates he had inherited from his father Augustus, but the real reason may have been a desire to establish contacts with the leaders of the anti-royal camp – Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki and Franciszek Ksawery Branicki. Landowners from all over the country also began to arrive in Puławy to discuss matters with the duchy before the upcoming parliamentary session, which would go down in history as the quadrennial sejm.

thumb|Izabela Czartoryska in a gypsy costume, by [[Kazimierz Wojniakowski 1796]]In this atmosphere, Izabela Czartoryska decided to stage the opera Matka Spartanka, which Franciszek Kniaźnin had just composed to music by Wincenty Fryderyk Lessel, father of Franciszek Lessel, the court composer of the Czartoryski family, and to sets by Jan Piotr Norblin. The opera was performed in the Great Hall of the Puławy Palace, probably on 15 June 1786. The premiere was attended by such anti-royal magnates as Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, Seweryn Rzewuski, Ignacy Potocki and Stanisław Kostka Potocki, and the audience totalled over 500. Kniaźnin's now forgotten drama caused a similar stir in Puławy and later throughout Poland as the return of the ambassador Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, which premiered four years later. The plot of the work, based on an episode of the Boeotian War, in which the Thebans led by Epaminondas fought against the Spartans in 371 BC, actually spoke of the need to fight for Polish independence – under the Spartan theatrical costume was Poland, and Thebes symbolized the threatening Russia.

“Mother Spartan” was not the only play Isabella produced. Unlike her husband, who, after writing several comedies (e.g. “The Married Maiden”, “The Actress”, “Coffee”) performed in Warsaw, including on the stage of the cadet regiment, of which he was the commander, in the 1770s, lost interest in playwriting after 1780. The Princess was a passionate lover of the theater and staged plays in which she herself also acted, in the Puławy Palace, in the garden and on the open-air stage of nearby Kępa. Already in the spring of 1787, Kniaźnin's second opera, “The Gypsies”, premiered in Siedlce. The music was composed by Michał Kleofas Ogiński, and the duchess played a gypsy woman named Jawnuta. This time, the play belonged to the genre of comic opera with sentimental elements.

Although the Czartoryskas' primary residence from 1783 was Puławy — her husband, however, preferred Sieniawa, their second residence — she continued to travel extensively both in Poland and abroad and to take an active part in political life. In 1787, the duchy met Emperor Joseph II on their estates in Galicia — from 1781 Adam Kazimierz also served as commander of the Galician Noble Guard, the Nobel Guard, at the court of Vienna — and in September of the same year Izabela traveled to Paris. There she met, among others, Queen Marie Antoinette, to whom she delivered a letter from her brother, Emperor Joseph, It contained objects of sentimental importance pertaining to the glories and miseries of human life. During the November Uprising in 1830, the museum was closed. Son Adam George Czartoryski, going into exile in Paris, evacuated the museum's surviving objects to the Hôtel Lambert. His son Władysław Czartoryski would re-open the museum in 1878 in Kraków, where it exists today.

thumb|[[Temple of the Sibyl, from 1801, in early 19th century.]]

Paintings and works of art that Princess Izabela did not associate with historical figures, came to the museum for their artistic merit. The gallery of paintings at the Gothic House was mostly acquired by her sons, Adam Jerzy and Konstanty.

Works

Published

  • Myśli różne o sposobie zakładania ogrodów (Various Thoughts on the Method of Laying Gardens, 1805)
  • A prayer book for village children during Holy Mass, written for the Puławy school (1815)
  • Pielgrzym w Dobromilu, czyli nauki wiejskie (The Pilgrim in Dobromil, or Rural Sciences with a Novel and 40 Pictures, 1819)
  • The Pilgrim in Dobromil, Part Two, or a Continuation of the Rural Teachings with Ten Pictures and Music (1821)
  • By Stagecoach Through Silesia: Journal of a Journey to Cieplice in 1816 (published 1968)
  • The Sybil Catalogue (1827)
  • List of memorabilia preserved in the Gothic House in Puławy (1828)
  • Correspondence of Princess Izabella Czartoryska with the poet Delille (published in 1887)
  • Letters from Countess Fleming, Princess Izabella Czartoryska to her elder son Prince Adam (published 1887)
  • Correspondance inédite D'Isabelle Czartoryska avec JC Lavater (ed. 1970)

thumb|"Mon portrait, il y a dix ans", manuscript by Princess Izabela Czartoryska.

Selection of unpublished works

  • Mon portrait, il ya dix ans (diaries)
  • Mémoires et écrit divers (diaries)
  • Tour through England
  • Catalog of memorabilia deposited at the Gothic House in Puławy
  • Aventure bizarre mais vrai arrivée à Puławy (fantastic and sentimental story)
  • Poems: The Willow and the Weeping Birch, To the Polish Army, Let's Look at Nature and others

See also

  • Czartoryski Museum
  • Royal Casket
  • "Mold of the Earth"

References

  • Czartoryski Museum website