August Aleksander Czartoryski was born on 9 November 1697 in Warsaw. He was the second son of Kazimierz Czartoryski (1674–1741) and Izabela Czartoryska née Morsztyn (1671–1758). He came from a famous ducal family which used the Lithuanian Pahonia in its seal. His father served successively as the Deputy Chancellor of Lithuania and Castellan of Vilnius, while the mother conducted a famous salon in Warsaw, a meeting place for political and intellectual elites.
August Aleksander’s eldest sister, Ludwika Elżbieta, became a nun of the Visitation order; the younger Konstancja married Stanisław Poniatowski in 1720. The youngest of the siblings, Teodor Kazimierz, elected an ecclesiastical career and became Bishop of Poznań in 1738, while August Aleksander’s elder brother, Michał Fryderyk, served first as Deputy Chancellor of Lithuania and then as Grand Chancellor of Lithuania (since 1752).
The early years of life and education of the young Czartoryskis were spent in the ancestral home, under the meticulous care of Princess Izabela. Home education provided the young with intellectual foundations and stoked their passions. A list of books Czartoryski ordered in Dresden in the 1740s indicates his particular fondness for the French Bibliothèque raisonnée, the works of Voltaire, and the classics. August Aleksander developed into an intelligent and considerate man; he conducted himself in an orderly manner, according to strict daily routines. On the other hand, he is said to have exhibited his difficult character already in childhood, as recorded by his sister Konstancja, who characterised Prince August as an impetuous and proud person, while stressing that he had moved on greatly since he was thirteen, curbing his bursts of emotion.
In 1715 the young prince departed for a trip abroad. Initially, he travelled to France and Italy, taking up studies in Rome. Then, he set out toward the German Reich, and, having joined the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, served an apprenticeship in the order’s fleet. According to unconfirmed accounts, he numbered among the defenders of Corfu and served with the famous military leader, Prince Eugene of Savoy, as Colonel of the imperial army during the Turkish campaign, receiving an honorary blade from the Prince in 1718 at Belgrade. In time, his career in the Austrian army was thwarted by the declining relationship with the commander in chief. Having reached the rank of a colonel, with no tangible prospects of a further advance, Prince August decided to return to the Commonwealth. The experiences of youth and travels greatly affected Czartoryski’s personality, turning him into a realist open to relations with Europe. This somewhat adventurous period in his life yielded some of the later friendships and acquaintances, for instance, with Austrian generals. Ties between Prince August and the Viennese society were not severed in the 1720s. The Prince liked to visit the capital of Austria, where he spent a large part of 1723 and the turn of 1726. In 1728 he met Montesquieu himself in the city.
Following his return to the Commonwealth, the Prince used his status as a Knight of Malta, acting as a plenipotentiary of the order in defence of its rights to the Ostrogski estate. Having devoted ten years to the dispute, Czartoryski probably hoped to be named the life-long overseer of the estate. To that end, he had inspired the production of public manifestos. In 1721 he fruitlessly advocated the interests of the Knights at the relation sejms. He prepared an exposé on the order’s claim to the estate for the Sejm of 1722, but could not present it as the session was broken (which happened again in 1724 and 1726). The Duke’s manifestos were met with counter-manifestos, and in many cases anonymous satires highlighting the groundlessness of his claims. In that period, the favour of Augustus II the Saxon for the Czartoryskis facilitated a string promotions—on 1 June 1729 he was nominated Colonel of Crown Foot Guards, and on 14 June of the same year Major General of Army of the Crown. He took part in the famous campamentos of Augustus II, at Mühlberg in June 1730 and at Marymont in 1732. The year 1730 saw his début—and last appearance—as representative from Livonia. Thanks to military nominations and the favour of the monarch, his position became so strong that he could pursue marriage with Maria Zofia Denhoff née Sieniawska, a lady believed to be the wealthiest match in the Commonwealth.
Two years of courtship ended in success in 1731. Prince August’s eventual victory in the matrimonial battle was prompted by two factors. One was the support of the monarch; the other—the decision of Lady Denhoff herself, which followed an examination of the character and determination of her pretenders. Before the marriage, which took place on 11 July 1731 at the church of Friars Observants in Warsaw, Czartoryski’s parents ceded the Zhukiv estate to their son, creating somewhat spurious material foundations for his subsistence in a response to ‘the whims and fancies of Lady Voivode’s kinsfolk’. The marriage gave the Prince’s career an incredible boost—on 22 July of the same year he received the Order of the White Eagle, and on 11 November was nominated the Voivode of Rus’. His recently wed wife must have given him significant support in his pursuit of a senatorial nomination. This last advance marked the beginning and end of August Aleksander’s career—he never received another promotion and concentrated on real political and financial power at the expense of lofty titles. It is said that in the 1730s the Prince sought to secure the title of Grand Hetman for himself, but when the position was taken by Józef Potocki in 1735, he resigned from the effort (at any rate he would have to contend with the competition of his brother-in-law, Stanisław Poniatowski). His name was mentioned on numerous other occasions in relation to different vacancies; in 1739 his associates and clients mentioned him as pretender to the title of Castellan of Cracow, and after 1764 there was talk of his pursuit of the title of Grand Hetman of the Crown.
After the death of Augustus II the Saxon in 1733 the Prince led his family in supporting Stanisław Leszczyński as his successor. For a while, Czartoryski himself was seen as a pretender (his candidacy received backing in a leaflet entitled ‘Votum for the Piast from an oldster unable to get to the election’). There is no indication that this supposed challenge for the crown was made by the Voivode; well-informed diplomats identified his wife, sister, and brother among the initiators of the action. After the election of Stanisław Leszczyński in 1733, Czartoryski found himself with his family in Gdańsk besieged by the Russian army under the command of Field Marshal Burkhard von Münnich. His first son—Adam Kazimierz—was born at that time. After Leszczyński’s escape, Czartoryski joined the commission tasked with deciding the fate of Gdańsk. Following the city’s capitulation, the Voivode of Rus’ found himself among those Poles who came to gradually accept the new political conjuncture. On 29 June 1734 the Prince signed the act of submission, identifying Augustus III the Saxon as the legal ruler of the Commonwealth. The appeasement was mutual—in 1735 the new monarch gifted the Prince a regiment of Foot Guards of the Crown with an explicit order to raise the unit to the expected splendour, and a year later, during his stay in Dresden, Czartoryski was made Knight of the Saxon Order of Saint Henry.
In the second half of the 1730s Czartoryski spent much of his time abroad, which contributed primarily to a series of medical complaints. He received balneological treatment, mostly with water from Spa. Meanwhile, interior affairs were managed by his wife, allowing him to limit his political activity, and even correspondence. Previously, during his periods of dominance, the Prince led an active life, travelling widely, mostly between his three residences in Berezhany, Puławy, and Wilanów, personally supervising his political and financial affairs. As he aged, his mobility decreased—the Voivode would spend Summers in his favourite Puławy, and Winters in Warsaw.
Frequent travels resulted mostly from the need to supervise economic interests. Czartoryski managed his properties in an exemplary manner. In the 1730s he systematically claimed control over the entirety of economic and financial matters involved in the operation of his properties and modernised their administration. He eliminated debts, estimated in 1731 at about one million ducats, and then set about multiplying the income. The Prince personally supervised the accountants and controlled the most important expenses, registered in the meticulous Books of receipts and expenses. During an audit of the Prince’s fortune, the income value of his properties was established at 9,355,713 złotys, 5 groszy, and 15 denari, while those of Maria Zofia Czartoryska amounted to 45,006,297 złotys, 4 groszy, and 4 denari.
Aside from the property inherited from the Czartoryskis, Sieniawskis, and Denhoffs, Prince August enjoyed the use of several profitable state-owned properties, including the districts of Kałuszyn, Kościerzyna, Ludza and Latowice, as well as Vishnivchik. On 14 November 1742 he acquired the district of Warsaw from Maciej Święcicki, which he then ceded to Alois Brühl in 1750. In exchange, he received the nomination for General of Podolia in the same year, a title he passed on to his son Adam Kazimierz in 1758. Also in 1750, he received the district of Letychiv. Duke August did not enjoy parting with his titles or properties—in spite of a promise made to Stanisław Poniatowski, he never handed his regiment of Foot Guards of the Crown over to Kazimierz Poniatowski when the latter came of age.
Since 1733 Prince August gradually focused on grand-scale politics. This process culminated in 1743–52, when the emerging Czartoryski Family played the part of the party of the court with August Aleksander as a leading figure. The Prince himself favoured a single-party system and believed that the dominant faction should form as a result of a process of reasoned distribution of vacancies, under the court’s aegis. Through personal politics he forged mostly out of his wife’s financial resources, Prince August managed to create an influential faction during the reign of Augustus III, aspiring to dominance in Sejms, local parliaments, and tribunals. Under the Saxon King’s rule, this group formed a crucial and potent section of the Family.
In the pages of his memoirs, Stanisław August Poniatowski suggestively described the reaching of a ‘familial’ decision: during the Family’s conferences discussions over specific subjects were initiated by Michał Fryderyk Czartoryski, who described the various aspects at stake; August and Konstancja made the decisions (with the former additionally responsible for studying the financial side of a given undertaking), and Stanisław Poniatowski implemented them. The Voivode of Rus’ was also responsible for negotiations with the King—Augustus III trusted him more than he did Michał Fryderyk. The monarch’s sentiments were shared, and perhaps also confirmed, by his Prime Minister, Heinrich Brühl. In exchange for their loyalty, the Czartoryskis enjoyed an extensive credit at the court, used expertly in clashes with their political opponents (this was particularly visible in the 1740s, during the notorious court battles against the Szamocki and Tarło families). In 1749, on the even of the famous resumption of the Tribunal of the Crown, Jan Tarło described Prince August, not without a hint of irony, as ‘Prince Voivode of Rus’, overlord of Poland’. The image of Prince August as a consistent but ruthless politician was verified after the events of 1745. Following the death of Voivode of Cracow Teodor Lubomirski, uncle of Princess Zofia, Czartoryski became one of the executors of his will. Taking no note of the short time that had elapse since Lubomirski’s death, and without communicating with the other executor, Jan Małachowski, the Prince pressed Lubomirski’s widow to deposit the jewels he left behind. The Voivode’s conduct received a negative appraisal among his contemporaries as too hasty and inconsiderate for the solemn occasion.
His contemporaries spoke of Prince August in much varied tones. Though gifted and intelligent, he was also perceived as an arrogant figure loathing his environment. Because of that, the Voivode tended to be eclipsed in public by his brother, Chancellor of Lithuania, and rarely entertained to speak at official functions. Among the few exceptions was the event in 1748, when Prince August declared his support for the French candidate in case of the King’s death. Another occurred in 1750, when he sounded the alarm at the court in Vienna, calling for a closer attendance to Polish affairs in view of the growing involvement of the Prussian party. On the other hand, he participated actively in the controversial affair of the Ostrogski estate (according to the provisions of the transaction at Kolbuszowa in 1753, he received a half of the key to Starokostiantyniv). After 1752, following a break-up with the court, Prince August intended to exploit the exile of Ernst Biron by arrogating the Duchy of Courland, while plotting to promote his son, Adam Kazimierz, as the successor to Augustus III on the Polish throne. Some even claimed that the Prince would fancy the crown for himself. Due to his standing, Czartoryski often mediated in serious affairs. In 1756, lamenting the protracted conflict between Deputy Master of the Pantry of the Crown Stanisław Lubomirski and Sword-Bearer of the Crown Antoni Benedykt Lubomirski, the dispirited Prince August wrote: ‘they are happy to lay themselves to waste, I am through with trying to appease them in this intemperance’. Again, his political activity suffered due to health problems, which renewed during the politically heated 1761. Prince August spent the entire Winter in Vowchyn, returning to Puławy only in Spring.
In terms of both the Family’s politics and Prince August’s actions, the most disputed question concerned the sensibility of implementing reforms in the Commonwealth with the support of Russia led by Catherine II—a policy based on the assumption that the Polish-Lithuanian state was strong enough to resist any possible territorial encroachments. Prince August maintained diplomatic or civil relations with the Russian political and military milieus throughout his life. According to Tadeusz Korzon, he received a regular salary from the Russian embassy to the sum of 54,000 złotys a month. In 1747 he was made Knight of the Russian Order of Saint Andrew. In 1748 he spoke against the unofficial admittance of Russian troops into the lands of the Commonwealth to let them pass West during the War of Austrian Succession. The Czartoryskis’ dedication to Russia in the 1750s is noted in many independent sources. Events accelerated in 1756 when Tsaritsa Elisabeth I personally assured Prince August of her unwavering protection at Czartoryski’s clear request made in view of the political turbulences in the Commonwealth.
Prince August believed deeply in the sensibility of this political turn, and understandably so—the decades of impasse in Polish politics seemed to require extreme solutions. In 1763, during a conference at Primate Władysław Łubieński’s, the Prince presented plans for a confederacy against the King, geared—in the understanding of the initiators—toward claiming control over the country. Though Catherine II put the operation on hold, arms continued to be amassed in Czartoryski’s properties—Škłoŭ and Medzhybizh. It was not without a reason that proponents of the Family converged at Puławy in the Summer of 1763. This was also the source of funding for the project during the turbulent period.
The year 1763—when Augustus III died—saw significant changes. They began with the interregnum. Czartoryski was elected Marshal of the Mazovian confederacy and received a nomination as General Commander of the Army of the Crown on 12 May 1764 (which meant that after the convocation Sejm stripped the hetmans of all power, he assumed complete control over the entire military). Czartoryski was among the initiators of the ‘invitation’ to Russian troops to safeguard the impending election, in his capacity as commander of the forces of the Crown. On 23 June 1764 Prince August was unanimously elected marshal of the general confederacy.
On 12 July 1764 he issued an address to Catherine II, thanking her for supporting Polish laws and freedoms and asking for the intervention to be maintained until the country is appeased. In time, Czartoryski—realising the nature and purpose of Russian military presence within the Commonwealth—distanced himself from those who believed that Tsaritsa Catherine II’s endorsement of Stanisław August Poniatowski testified to her respect of the demands of a sizeable proportion of the Polish society. The name of the Voivode of Rus’ appeared yet again on the list of possible candidates to the Polish throne, but he seemed to cede all ambitions involved in the pursuit of the crown onto his son. The results of the election of 1764 were a grave disappointment to Czartoryski, auguring the demise of the plans of reform which the leaders of the Family had been forming for years.
When Stanisław August was elected, relations between the Voivode of Rus’ and his nephew were not particularly pleasant. Prince August and his brother Michał did not support the new king during the coronation sejm of 1764; throughout the session, the Prince excused himself with an illness, perhaps to avoid having to advocate unpopular decisions imposed by Russia. The dissonance between the Czartoryskis and the new king gradually extended; the Prince was also conflicted with his eldest nephew, Kazimierz Poniatowski. Nikolay Repnin still saw Czartoryski as a major and influential player (the Russian embassy continued to remunerate him with 3,000 ducats a month as marshal of the general confederacy). As commander of a regiment, the Prince was twice elected the President of the Military Commission (in 1764 and 1766). In 1767 he resigned from the office. He took part in consulting the problem of dissidents before the Sejm of 1766, advocating caution. He refused to open a debate on the subject at the Sejm and suggested that the presence of Russian troops in the Commonwealth would not help dissolve the tension. During the session, he and his brother Michał stressed that dissidents should be granted political rights, but the current conditions of widespread opposition among the nobility would not permit that. In 1768 he addressed the Senate with a call for military action against the Bar Confederacy.
The deaths of his wife, in 1771, and brother Michał Fryderyk, four years later, took their toll on the Duke. He spent his final years in Warsaw, in the palace at Miodowa Street, practically removed from the political life. His response to the First Partition of the Commonwealth is unknown—he did not partake in the partition sejm, locked up in Wilanów. For Prince August, the loss of a proportion of the country’s territory also posed questions with regard to the security of certain estates, such as Škłoŭ, which was lost after Czartoryski did not pay tribute to Tsaritsa Catherine II in the prescribed time. It was possibly due to these problems that he visited Saint Petersburg in 1776. Meanwhile, as late as 1777, he unsuccessfully tried to come to terms with Stanisław August Poniatowski, using his daughter, Izabela Lubomirska, as an intermediary.
In this period, he socialised to a greater extent; according to Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, ‘Every day the Voivode went to dinner and afterwards sat to play tryssata, a game similar to whist, in a foursome, with the Papal Nuncio [Giovanni Andrea Archetti—KK] joining in’. The Prince maintained this routine until the end. Though he belonged to the ‘Red Brotherhood’—the first Masonic lodge in the Commonwealth—like his brother Michał, toward the end of his life he cared deeply for the salvation of his soul. He even arranged for private services for himself (a relevant document was issued by Nuncio G.A. Archetti). He maintained a clear mind until the end—even on the day of his death, he still took part in the routine game of tryssata. He departed with great dignity and in peace (in spite of losing sight shortly before his demise), surrounded by the closest of kin, on 4 April 1782 in Warsaw, having received sacraments and to the tune of the psalm Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. The people of Warsaw crowded to bid farewell to Prince August, who was buried in the catacombs of the church of the Holy Cross inside the capital.
The marriage of August and Zofia was durable and happy. This was in no small part due to Sieniawska, who visibly withdrew from all interests, ceding these affairs to her husband. The pair had three children: Adam Kazimierz (married to Izabela née Flemming in 1761) and Elżbieta vel Izabela, the wife of Stanisław Lubomirski, as well as a younger son, Stanisław (born in 1740), who died aged seven. Prince August had particularly strong ties to his daughter: Izabela was his closest aide; he often sent her on political missions, and even used her to exert influence on the King.
Prince August Aleksander Czartoryski was one of the most influential figures during the reign of Augustus III the Saxon. His position derived from the ducal title as well as the enormous fortune of his wife, connections at the court, and foreign ties, and finally an extreme tactical dexterity, which allowed him to develop convincing visions for the future of the Commonwealth. After 1764 the politically defeated Voivode of Rus’ found himself unable to cooperate with his nephew and gradually withdrew from the centre of power, contending himself with the role of a known and respected senior of his tribe.
Translation: Antoni Górny
