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The actual outcome of the war was a crushing blow to Polish

hopes. Napoleon's invasion of Russia resulted in his utter

defeat; after his flight home his army was defeated at Leipzig

(1813), where Prince Joseph Poniatowski met his death. Two years

later, at the Congress of Vienna, the greater portion of Poland

was given over to Russia, to be governed as a constitutional

state. Such it remained, in name at least, until the desperate

insurrection of 1831, the failure of which ended all pretence of

Polish self-government under Russian rule. To drown the grief and

despair with which that tragedy had filled his mind Mickiewicz

turned back in the next year (when he began Pan Tadeusz) to the

scenes of his childhood, to the days full of hope and joyful

expectation that had preceded Napoleon's attack on Russia.]