Editing Tadeusz Kościuszko (section)

===European travels===
In 1768, civil war broke out in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, when the [[Bar Confederation]] sought to depose King Stanisław August Poniatowski. One of Kościuszko's brothers, Józef, fought on the side of the insurgents. Faced with a difficult choice between the rebels and his sponsors—the King and the Czartoryski family, who favored a gradualist approach to shedding Russian domination—Kościuszko chose to leave Poland. In late 1769, he and a colleague, artist [[Aleksander Orłowski]], were granted royal scholarships; on 5 October, they embarked for Paris. They wanted to further their military education. As foreigners, they were barred from enrolling in French military academies, and so they enrolled in the [[Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture|Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture]].<ref name="Herbst431" /> There Kościuszko pursued his interest in drawing and painting and took private lessons in architecture from architect [[Jean-Rodolphe Perronet]].<ref>[[#Gardner|Gardner, 1942]], p. 17.</ref>{{#tag:ref|Sketches from Kościuszko's hand still survive and are guarded as national treasures in Polish museums.|group="note"}}

Kościuszko did not give up on improving his military knowledge.  He audited lectures for five years and frequented the libraries of the Paris military academies. His exposure to the French [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], along with the [[Toleration|religious tolerance]] practised in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, strongly influenced his later career. The French economic theory of [[physiocracy]] made a particularly strong impression on his thinking.<ref name="Storozynski pp. 17–18.">[[#Storozynski2009|Storozynski, 2009]], pp. 17–18.</ref> He also developed his artistic skills, and while his career took him in a different direction, all his life he continued drawing and painting.<ref name="Herbst431" /><ref>[[#NPS2009|NPS, 2009]], Essay.</ref>

In the [[First Partition of Poland|First Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]] in 1772, [[Russian Empire|Russia]], [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]], and [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]] annexed large swaths of Commonwealth territory and gained influence over the internal politics. When Kościuszko returned home in 1774, he found that his brother Józef had squandered most of the family fortune, and there was no place for him in the Army, as he could not afford to buy an officer's commission.<ref>[[#Storozynski2011|Storozynski, 2011]], p. 32.</ref> <!--He also had to deal with a legal dispute involving a brother.<ref name="Herbst431"/> "unimportant, commenting out per FAC review – can be expanded perhaps one day" --> He took a position as tutor to the family of the [[Magnates of Poland and Lithuania|magnate]], [[Voivode|province governor]] (voivode) and [[hetman]] [[Józef Sylwester Sosnowski]] and fell in love with the governor's daughter [[Ludwika Sosnowska|Ludwika]].{{#tag:ref|After he returned to Poland from America and sought a Polish Army commission, the then-Princess Lubomirska—she had been forced by her father to marry into the higher nobility—urged the King to offer Kościuszko a commission.  When he went to Warsaw in the summer of 1789 to pursue the matter, he encountered her at a ball.  As his friend [[Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz]] later recounted, "The meeting was so emotional [for both] that they were unable to speak to each other; each moved away to a different corner of the ''[[Drawing room|salon]]'' and wept."<ref>[[#Makowski|Makowski, 2013]], p. 14.</ref> In 1791, he sought to marry Tekla Zurowska, but again met paternal opposition.{{sfn|Bain|1911|p=914}}|group="note"}}  Their elopement was thwarted by her father's retainers.<ref name="Herbst431" /> Kościuszko received a thrashing at their hands, an event that may have led to his antipathy for class distinctions.<ref name="Lituanus" />

In the autumn of 1775 he emigrated to avoid Sosnowski and his retainers.<ref name="Herbst431" /> In late 1775 he attempted to join the [[Saxony|Saxon]] army but was turned down and decided to return to Paris.<ref name="Herbst431" /> There he learned of the [[American Revolutionary War]] outbreak, in which the British colonies in North America had revolted against the British Crown and begun their struggle for independence. The first American successes were well-publicized in France, and the French people and government openly supported the revolutionaries' cause.<ref>[[#Storozynski2011|Storozynski, 2011]], pp. 36–38.</ref>