The Senators' Chamber
Eighteenth century; rebuilt 1971 to 1984
You are standing in the room where the Constitution of the Third of May was adopted. On the third of May seventeen ninety one, with the city crowded around the castle and supporters filling the galleries, the king and the deputies of the Sejm gathered here and voted for a new form of government, the first written constitution in Europe and the second in the world after that of the United States. The throne stands at one end, the benches for the senators run along the walls beneath the painted coats of arms of the lands of the Commonwealth, and the room is arranged much as it was on that day.
Look at the arms above the benches. Each one belongs to a province or a palatinate of Poland and Lithuania, and together they map a state that stretched from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea. The senators sat according to the rank of their office, the bishops nearest the throne, and the deputies of the lower chamber crowded in from their own hall next door for joint sessions. The plain, dignified decoration is very different from the gilded splendour of the king's apartments and reminds you that the Commonwealth was a republic of nobles with an elected king.
The Constitution abolished the liberum veto, strengthened the central government and extended some protection to townspeople and peasants. It lasted little more than a year before Russian armies and a confederation of magnates overthrew it, and the second and third partitions wiped Poland from the map. Its anniversary is still a national holiday. The chamber was destroyed with the castle in nineteen forty four and rebuilt from plans and photographs; the original act of the Constitution is preserved in the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw, and Matejko's painting of the event hangs in the Matejko Rooms nearby.
Did You Know? The Constitution was passed on a day when many opposition deputies were still away for the Easter recess, a timing its supporters had carefully planned.
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