POTOCKI, STANISLAW FELIX (1752-1805) , Polish politician, son of Franciszek Salezy Potocki, palatine of Kiev, was born in 1752. Through family influence, he became grand standard-bearer of the Crown at the age of twenty-two. In 1782 he was made palatine of Russia, in 1784 a lieutenant-general, and in 1789 purchased the rank of a general of artillery. Liberal, enlightened, a generous master and a professed patriot, he had awakened great hopes; but he identified the public welfare with the welfare of the individual magnates, and when elected to the Four Years' Diet, schemed to divide Poland into an oligarchy of autonomous grandees exercising the supreme power in rotation (in fact a perpetual interregnum). The election of Malachowski (q.v.) and Kazimierz Sapieha as marshals of the diet still further alienated him from the Liberals; and he retired to Vienna whence he continued to carry on an active propaganda against the new ideas. He protested against the constitution of May 3, 1791,
and after attempting fruitlessly to induce the emperor Leopold to intervene, proceeded with his friends in March 5792 to St. Petersburg, and subsequently with the connivance of the empress Catherine formed the confederation of Targowica (May 1792), of which he was the marshal, or rather the dictator, direct ing its operations from his castle at Tulczyn. When the May constitution was overthrown. Potocki (March 1793) went on a diplomatic mission to St. Petersburg; but, finding himself duped, , he settled down at Tulczyn. He wrote On the Polish Succession (Pol.) (Amsterdam, 1789) ; Protest against the Succession to the Throne (Pol.) (ibid. 1790) ; and other political works.