Pousot CouNTs.—What in Belgium, as well as other lands, excites
astonish- ment, is the monstrous number of Counts that are found among the emigrants. * * * The more so, as the Committee, which has been sitting at Warsaw for some years, for the purpose of officially searching into such claims, has recognized very few as authentic. About the end of the seventeenth century, there was a law passed, forbidding, under severe penalties, such an assumption. Under the dominion of the house of Saxony, many heads of familiec, during their travels abroad, which then were general, thought proper to give them- selves the title of Count, or to receive it from the complaisant foreigners. Even before the entire fall of Poland, in 1794, some but not many families Were, in public documents, ennobled by the neighbouring German Princes. But after the great catastrophe, the Court of Vienna in order to gain over adherents, gave to every magnate living in that part of inland which fell under Austrian rule (who was of old but a Wojewode), or who filled any high office, the title of Count; but only personally and for life. This many of their descendants con- tinued to assame.—Count Adam von Gummi:is Tour durcheBelgium,im io-hre 1844: Ainsworth's Magazine.
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