Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (1770-1861)
In the 1850s and 1860s, the cemetery at Les Champeaux gained popularity as a final resting place for the Polish émigré community, primarily for wealthier exiles, often aristocratic and aligned with the conservative-liberal faction known as the Hôtel Lambert, named for the Parisian residence of its leader, Adam Jerzy Czartoryski. It is, therefore, unsurprising that Prince Czartoryski, who spent nearly the last thirty years of his life in exile in Paris, advancing the Polish cause through quasi-diplomatic and propagandist means, was also laid to rest, albeit temporarily, at Montmorency. By this time, his sister, Princess Maria Wirtemberska (1768-1854), Poland’s first novelist, had already been interred at Les Champeaux alongside Cecylia Beydale (1787-1851), most likely the illegitimate daughter of Czartoryski’s mother, Izabela Czartoryska (1745-1835).

Amid the resurgence of Polish national sentiment across the three Partitions and renewed hopes for Western support, Czartoryski’s funeral was conducted with remarkable grandeur, considering the émigré circumstances. Its style was almost regal, and it reflected the aspirations of some of the prince’s supporters, who saw in him Adam I, a potential king of a restored Poland. The remains of Czartoryski, who passed away on 15 July 1861 at a rented château in Montfermeil, were transferred on 18 July to the chapel at the Hôtel Lambert on Paris’s Île Saint-Louis. This is where his body lay in state and where Requiem Mass was held several times daily. Czartoryski was dressed in a red velvet cloak trimmed with sable, which lent him an air of royalty. Four days later, the official funeral ceremonies took place, attended by several thousand people, including the chamberlain and aide-de-camp of Emperor Napoleon III, the British ambassador, and other dignitaries. The coffin was solemnly carried from the Hôtel Lambert to the parish Church of Saint-Louis, where the Archbishop of Paris, François-Nicholas-Madeleine Morlot (1795-1862), participated in the service. A smaller procession then accompanied the prince to Montmorency, where, after further services and eulogies, he was laid to rest in the vault of the Collegiate Church of Saint Martin.

Nevertheless, Montmorency would not become Czartoryski’s final resting place, despite the hopes of his followers, who wished for their leader to remain as a symbol of their shared exile, separated from their oppressed homeland. Even before his death, Czartoryski had envisioned a posthumous return to his family estate at Sieniawa (in what was then Galicia, under Austrian rule), where his father Adam Kazimierz (1734-1823) lay in the family vault and where, in 1860, his mother’s remains had also been transferred. In December 1864, Czartoryski’s wife, Princess Anna née Sapieha (1799-1864), passed away and was buried in the collegiate church beside her husband. However, by August 1865, all family members, including Maria Wirtemberska and Cecylia Beydale, had been transferred to the church at Sieniawa. This move can be seen as a response to shifting circumstances following the failed January Rising (1863-1864), which marked the fading hope for the swift restoration of Polish independence and the political rapprochement of Czartoryski’s son, Władysław (1828-1894), with the Austrian authorities in Vienna. Another manifestation of this shift came in the 1870s with the transfer of the renowned Puławy collection of art and national mementoes, originally gathered by Adam Jerzy’s mother and preserved in Paris after the November Rising, to Kraków, where they became the foundation of the Czartoryski Museum, opened in 1878. Today, the only remaining tribute to Adam Jerzy Czartoryski at Montmorency is a modest epitaph from 1868, placed opposite the impressive monument to Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz and Karol Kniaziewicz. This epitaph is a neo-Gothic wall-mounted shrine featuring a bust of the deceased by Klemens Boryczewski (1828-1894), set on a console bearing the Pogoń coat of arms above a black marble plaque.

The grand funeral of the exiled prince marked Czartoryski’s final role in a distinguished career spanning more than seventy years. A unifying feature across these roles was his embodiment of the enlightened aristocrat, holding liberal views shaped by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century’s elite salons. His approach was moderately reformist and Anglophile in that he wished to maintain the nobility’s role and standing in society. This ideology was reflected in the Constitution of 3 May 1791, the crowning achievement of the Great Sejm (1788-1792), which established an effective constitutional monarchy in Poland. While Czartoryski was seen as conservative among the democratic Polish émigrés in Paris after the November Rising (1830-1831), he was considered progressive compared to the more conservative landowning class in Russian- or Austrian-occupied Poland. Even in the late 1850s and early 1860s, he urged Polish landowners under Russian rule to renounce class-based self-interest and grant freehold to the peasantry in hopes of aligning them with the national cause. He also encouraged the Galician nobility to ally with moderate democrats while acknowledging that „the nobility can no longer represent the entire nation as it once did.”

As such, Czartoryski continued the legacy of his distinguished family, which was related to the House of Jagiellon and influential in shaping the future of the Commonwealth during its eighteenth-century crisis. Alongside the Poniatowskis, the Czartoryskis formed the powerful magnate faction known as the Familia, which sought to reform the state under Augustus III (reigned 1733-1763) with support from Russia. Through Russian influence, Stanisław August Poniatowski, a member of the Familia, ascended to the Polish throne as Stanisław II August (reigned 1764-1795). However, during Adam Jerzy’s youth, the Czartoryskis clashed with their royal relative, and they formed the nucleus of what became known as the magnate opposition. In 1788, on the eve of the Great Sejm, this opposition strove to gain the political upper hand. Adam Jerzy’s initial independent political moves included developing a rather ambitious plan for an aristocratic quattuorvirate to assume control and enact reform. Although he did not join the efforts to renew the Commonwealth, the young Czartoryski fought in the Russo-Polish War of 1792, and he earned the Virtuti Militari for his service.

Czartoryski’s independent political career began after the Third Partition of Poland. In May 1795, along with his brother Konstanty (1773-1860), he travelled to Saint Petersburg, like many Poles, to seek favour from Catherine II (who reigned from 1762 to 1796) and request the release of his family’s sequestered estates in Russian-controlled territories. Warmly received in Saint Petersburg, where he would spend the next thirteen years intermittently, Czartoryski succeeded in his aims and embarked on a distinguished courtly career. He most notably developed a close friendship with Grand Duke Alexander, who became Tsar Alexander I in 1801 (reigned 1801-1825). As his trusted advisor, Czartoryski assisted with early reforms in Russia and served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1804 to 1806. During this period, he orchestrated the formation of the Third Coalition against France, which Napoleon ultimately shattered with his victory at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805. Tolstoy later created an ambivalent portrayal of Czartoryski in War and Peace; he depicted him on the eve of this defining defeat, which marked the end of his influence and the fall from grace at the imperial centres of power.

During this period, and until the November Rising, Prince Czartoryski remained firmly committed to a pro-Russian orientation, which he viewed as the most advantageous route for Polish national aspirations. He hoped, at best, for the restoration of a Polish state in some form through an alliance with Russia or, at the very least, for the unification of all Polish territories under Romanov rule. His efforts to liberalise Russian policies towards Poles saw some success, and he substantially impacted Polish education in Russian-controlled territories through his long tenure as Superintendent of the Wilno (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania) School District (1802-1824). During the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), which redefined Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, Czartoryski played a decisive role on the side of Tsar Alexander I while championing the Polish cause. Ultimately, the Congress created the Kingdom of Poland, to which the Tsar granted a liberal constitution. Czartoryski became fully committed to the November Rising against Russia. As President of the National Government, he urged many aristocrats to support the Rising. However, he guided the effort in a conservative direction, as he mistakenly believed in the possibility of a compromise with Russia.

During his thirty-year exile, Czartoryski sought to establish himself as the central decision-making figure in the Polish diaspora, a leader in restoring independence or, at the very least, the autonomy envisioned by the Congress of Vienna. He saw an opportunity for the Polish cause to influence the policies of Western governments, particularly Britain and France, and win their support. His political engagement was complemented by attempts to shape public opinion, including through press influence. Czartoryski and his associates closely monitored international developments, and they established a network of agents throughout Europe with the hope that a favourable political climate would allow diplomatic and military efforts, including the formation of Polish battalions, to alter Poland’s unfortunate position. In this endeavour, Czartoryski maintained connections with other stateless nations, particularly those in the Balkans, and he promoted a liberal vision of international relations grounded in the right of nations to determine their future.

Additionally, Czartoryski, alongside his wife, supported educational and charitable initiatives for the Polish émigré community. He presided over the Polish Literary Society and co-founded several institutions, including the Polish Library, Saint Casimir’s Institute (a charitable house for the émigré community), the Polish School at Batignolles, Paris, the Polish School at Montparnasse, Paris, and the Institute for Polish Maidens.