Adam Zamoyski
ASIN: B00PY0JJG2
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Pages: 560
One night in December 1755, Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski, the twenty-three-year-old secretary to the British Ambassador in St Petersburg, was introduced into the bedroom of the Grand Duchess Catherine Alekseyevna. This marked the beginning of a torrid and clandestine affair which led to Stanisław being crowned King of Poland in 1764.The young king was a dashing figure in the finest eighteenth-century tradition. He was a perfect illustration of the contradictions of Europe's ideological and religious viewpoints: he worshipped reason but was led by the heart; professed Catholicism but believed in Providence; toyed with the occult and practised freemasonry. A great believer in art and education, he spent fortunes on cultural projects, and finding that he was blocked politically by Catherine, he put his energies into a social and artistic regeneration of his kingdom. He transformed the mood ...