CZARTORYSKI, FRYDERYK MICHAL, PRINCE Polish statesman, completed his education at Paris, Florence and Rome; he then attached himself to the court of Dresden and obtained the vice-chancellorship of Lithuania. Czar toryski was one of the nobles who, on the illness of Augustus II. in 1727, signed the secret guarantee of the Polish succession to his son ; but he supported Stanislaus Leszczynski when he was placed upon the throne by the influence of France in 1733. When Stan islaus abdicated in 1735 Czartoryski voted for Augustus III. (of Saxony), who employed him and his family against the Potockis. For the next 4o years Czartoryski was the leading Polish states man. In foreign affairs he was the first to favour an alliance with Russia, Austria and England, as opposed to France and Prussia— a system difficult to sustain and not always beneficial to Poland or Saxony. In Poland Czartoryski stood for reform. Promis ing young men were educated at his palace. He aimed at the restoration of the royal prerogative and the abolition of the liberum veto which made any durable improvement impossible. The Czartoryskis were therefore unpopular with the ignorant szlachta, but for many years they had the firm support of the Saxon court, especially after Briihl succeeded Fleming.
Czartoryski reached the height of his power in 1752 when he was entrusted with the great seal of Lithuania; but after that his rival, Mniszek, began to prevail at Dresden, whereupon Czartory ski sought a reconciliation with his opponents at home and for eign support in England and Russia, in the latter country unsuc cessfully. Czartoryski's philo-Russian policy had estranged Briihl, but he frustrated the Saxon court by dissolving the diets of 176o, 1761 and 1762. In 1763 he proposed the dethronement of Augus tus III., who died the same year. To his disgust his incompetent nephew, Stanislaus, was elected king in 1765 after an interregnum occupied by constitutional discussions. Czartoryski's foreign policy was very vacillating, and he changed his "system" more frequently perhaps than any contemporary diplomatist. But he was an able and patriotic statesman.
See the Correspondence of Czartoryski in the Collections of the Russian Historical Society, vols. vii., x., xiii., xlviii., lxvii. (189o. etc.) ; Adalbert Roepell, Polen um die Mitte des XVIII. Jahrhunderts (Gotha, 1876) ; de Broglie, Le Secret du roi (1878) ; Wladvslaw Tadeusz Kisielewski, Reforms of the Czartorysccy (Pol.) (Sambor, 188o) ; Ludwik Denbicki, Pulawy (Pol.) (Lemberg, 1887-88) ; Carl Heinrich Heyking, Aus Polens and Kurlands letzten Tagen (1897) ; Antoni Waliszewki, The Potoccy and the Czartorysccy (Pol.) .