Le pouvoir royal et les barons des États de Languedoc

SUMMARY

In this article Juliusz Bardach examines how the federal principles of the Polish-Lithuanian Union were handled in the framing of the Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791. It is shown how the tension between the unitary aims of the king and the reformers and the federalist aims of the Lithuanian delegates was resolved. Although the constitutional draft that was voted on 3 May 1791 appeared to establish a unitary kingdom, it has to be supplemented under Lithuanian pressure. In October 1791 there was added the ‘Mutual Guarantee of the Two Nations’, which reaffirmed the federal character of the Polish-Lithuanian state.