Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski

Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski (1 December 1734 – 19 March 1823) was a Polish-Lithuanian noble, writer, literary and theater critic, and statesman.

Life
He was the son of Prince August Aleksander Czartoryski, voivode of the Ruthenian Voivodship, and Maria Zofia Sieniawska. He married Izabela Fleming on 18 November 1761, in Wołczyn, Poland.

A member of the "Familia," in 1763 he declined to be a candidate for the Polish crown, preferring instead to be a patron of the arts, and withdrawing in favor of Stanisław August Poniatowski. Together with his wife, he created at the Czartoryski Palace in Puławy a major center of Polish intellectual and political life.

He served from 1758 as general starost of Podolia. Founder of the "Little Monitor", in 1765 he co-founded the Monitor, the leading periodical of the Polish Enlightenment. In 1766 he reorganized the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1767 he joined the Radom Confederation. In 1768 he became the commander of the School of Chivalry (Corps of Cadets). In 1788-1792 he was Deputy from Lublin to the "Four-Year Sejm." Drawing closer the king once again, he became a leader of the Patriotic Party and co-founder of Poland's Commission of National Education. He supported the Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791, and headed a diplomatic mission to Dresden, attempting to convince Frederick Augustus III, Elector of Saxony to support the Commonwealth and accept its throne (after Poniatowski's future death). He refused to joint the Targowica Confederation established to bring the Constitution down.

He received the Order of the White Eagle on November 25, 1764.

He was Marshal of the Convocation Sejm of 7 May - 23 June 1764, and of the Extraordinary Sejm of 26–28 June 1812, held in Warsaw. Thus he became Marshal of General Confederation of Kingdom of Poland.



Remembrance
He is one of the figures immortalized in Jan Matejko's 1891 painting, Constitution of May 3, 1791.

Awards

 * Order of the White Eagle (November 25, 1764).
 * Order of Saint Stanisław
 * Order of St. Andrew (1762)
 * Order of St. Anna
 * Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece (Austria) (1808)

Works
Czartoryski was an author of numerous comedies and plays. He has also written a critical essay on contemporary Polish literature, Myśli o pismach polskich [Thoughts on Polish Writings] (1810).


 * Panna na wydaniu (1771).
 * Katechizm kadecki (The Cadet's Catechism, 1774).
 * Kawa (Coffee, 1779).
 * Myśli o pismach polskich [Thoughts on Polish Writings] (1810).

Famous descent
He is an ancestor of Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz, Queen (Consort) of the Belgians. Prince Czartoryski's daughter, Zofia Czartoryska, and her husband Stanisław Kostka Zamoyski are Prince Leon Sapieha-Kodenski's parents-in-law. Princess Zofia Sapieha-Kodenska, Prince Leon's great-great-granddaughter, is Queen Mathilde's maternal grandmother, who died in a car accident with the princess's sister, Marie-Alix d'Udekem d'Acoz. He is 8th-generation ancestor to Queen Mathilde.