Stanislas II Augustus

Stanislas II Augustus, also called Stanislas Poniatowski (1732-1798), last king of Poland (1764-1795). A member of a prominent Polish family, Stanislas was elected king with the backing of Catherine the Great of Russia, and his reign was marked by successive partitions of Poland by Russia, Austria, and Prussia. He attempted to enact reforms and correct the weaknesses that made the country vulnerable to foreign intervention but had little success. With the third partition in 1795 and the disappearance of Poland as an independent nation, Stanislas abdicated and went into exile at St Petersburg, where he spent the rest of his life engaged in correspondence and in writing his memoirs.