1/174/0/2/73

Four papers from the files of the Governing Commission (Komisja Rządząca), kept in the Central Archives of Historical Records (Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych) in Warsaw. The archive calls the file “Papers of the Governing Commission during its stay at Dresden”. The four pieces published here were written at Dresden between 20 and 23 July 1807 and concern one matter: the return of the confiscated estates of the Starost Antoni Prusimski, Trąbczyn among them, to his daughter Michalina Dąbska. They are three petitions of hers and the commission’s draft resolution, on five pages; three are in Polish and one in French.

Historical background

Prussia confiscated the estates of the Starost Antoni Prusimski in 1796 and gave Trąbczyn and Kamionna with Kolno to Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (1746-1818), a Prussian general. In the war of 1806 and 1807 Napoleon drove Prussia out of the Polish provinces it had taken in the partitions. On 14 January 1807 he set up the Governing Commission, a provisional government of Poles under Stanisław Małachowski. It administered those provinces until 5 October 1807, when the government of the new Duchy of Warsaw took office. In July 1807, after the Peace of Tilsit, the commission was at Dresden, where Napoleon gave the Duchy its constitution.

Józef Wybicki, a member of the commission, had also lost estates to Prussia. Napoleon returned them to him by a decree given at Finckenstein on 5 June 1807, and the commission ordered the decree carried out on 12 July: 1/174/0/1/6. Michalina Dąbska took that decree as her precedent.

Contents

The petitions of 20 and 21 July. On 20 July 1807 Dąbska wrote to the commission in Polish. She had twice asked for the return of the estates confiscated from her father for the benefit of the Prussian generals she names as Prince Hohenlohe, Bischoffswerder and Zanitz: Trąbczyn in the department of Kalisz, and Kamionna, Kolno, Pawłowo, Pawłówko and a storehouse at a place written “Wrocławek” in the department of Poznań. She had had no answer. She asked the commission to intercede for her, so that she might obtain the judgment Wybicki had obtained from the Emperor [2]. On 21 July she petitioned Napoleon himself, in French and in the same terms [3]. The commission’s note on that petition records that it was presented at an extraordinary session at Dresden on 21 July 1807 by the Prince Director of War, on the Emperor’s order [3]. The note does not name the director; the commission’s director of war was Prince Józef Poniatowski.

The resolution of 21 July. The commission’s draft resolution is dated Dresden, 21 July 1807. It states that Dąbska’s case had been referred to the commission by the Emperor. It takes as its example the justice done to Wybicki by the decree given at Finckenstein, and extends that judgment to her case and to those of General Niemojewski and Wichrowski: the hereditary estates of these persons, confiscated by the former Prussian government, are to return to their true owners [1]. The draft names no estate. It is corrected in several places and carries the paraph of the president, Małachowski [1]. The fair copy is the entry in the commission’s register: 1/174/0/1/6.

The petition of 23 July. Two days later Dąbska wrote to the commission again. The Emperor’s decree for Wybicki had been taken as the principle and pattern for the commission’s decree of 21 July. She asked that the commission have its resolution carried out as the decree for Wybicki had been, by directing the Directorate of Internal Affairs to order the administrative chambers to put her in possession of the estates [4]. The commission noted the petition as presented on 23 July 1807 and filed it [4].

The papers published here do not include the order that followed. Trąbczyn was handed to Dąbska’s agent in October 1807: Oe 1 Bü 9454.

Form and language

The three petitions are the originals, each signed “Michalina z Prusimskich Dambska” or, in French, “Micheline Dambska née Prusimska”. The commission’s office noted on each the day it was presented; these notes stand at the foot of the page here, though they are written at its head. The petition to the Emperor is addressed on the back to Małachowski. The resolution is the commission’s own corrected draft. The outer edge of that leaf is torn, and two words lost there are supplied in square brackets.

Related holdings

The register of the commission’s orders and resolutions, with the fair copy of the resolution and the order for Wybicki: 1/174/0/1/6. The grant of the estates to Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen in 1796: Oe 1 Bü 14525 and I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3570. Dąbska’s earlier lawsuit against him for her mother’s estate, 1800 to 1802: I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3709. The letters of his agent Triebenfeld, which report the loss of the estates in 1807: Oe 1 Bü 9454. His claim to be compensated, 1814 to 1820: III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765. The dispute over the debts he left on Trąbczyn, 1818 to 1832: III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12366 and III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367.

Scans

The editor supplied five images from the file. Each shows two facing pages, of which one belongs to this matter; that page was cut out of the image and the other left aside. The edition has five pages. The pieces are numbered here by the image they are on. The leaves themselves carry pencil numbers (5, 7 and 8 for the first three pieces), which the editor’s transcription uses.

Transcription

The editor supplied the transcription as one text, written paragraph by paragraph and not line by line. It was divided to match the pages. The address of the petition to the Emperor is written on the back of its leaf and stands on a page of its own.

Division into documents

Each petition and the draft resolution is one document, four in all, in the order in which they are bound. Dates are taken from each document’s own dateline.

What the commission’s office wrote

On each petition the commission’s office noted the day it was presented. These notes are written at the head of the leaf. In the edition they stand at the foot of the page under the label “Written by the receiving office”, so that the petition reads first.

Corrections

An AI model (Claude) compared the whole transcription with the scans and corrected it where the page is plain. 25 passages were corrected and two short lines added. Most restore the writers’ spelling and abbreviations, which the transcription had modernised or spelled out. Three change the sense. The note on the petition to the Emperor says that it was presented by the Prince Director of War on the Emperor’s order. In the draft resolution a word that is struck out on the page was removed, and the abbreviation for “the Most Serene Emperor” was read correctly. The president’s paraph, which the transcription had left out, was added under the draft and under that note. Each change is logged with its reason.

Summaries

The summaries were written in German from a reading of each document against its scan, and translated into English. Each statement in them was then checked against its document, under the same rules as the separate check that the summaries of other holdings received: a summary may say only what the document says. All of them held.

Translation

The documents were translated into English in a working session under the same rules as the other holdings: every figure, name and mark of doubt carried across, names in the edition’s settled forms where it has settled them and otherwise as the page spells them, and passages that do not read left visibly doubtful rather than smoothed. The three Polish documents were translated from the Polish and the petition to the Emperor from the French. The forms of address are given in English (the Most Illustrious, Mr, Mrs); the word in the closing formula of the petition of 23 July that is not a Polish word as it stands is left in Polish. The same automatic check as elsewhere then confirmed that every figure and every mark of doubt survives into the English.

Still to do

One word in the closing formula of the petition of 23 July is not securely read. Words the writers struck out are not transcribed, by the editor’s rule; at the end of the draft resolution a whole clause is struck out in this way.