a town hall. Its merchants traded Hungarian wine, which at that time was very popular among Polish nobility. In 1638, Franciszek Mniszech began construction of a new palace, which was completed by his son Jan Mniszech. On January 2, 1656, during the Swedish invasion of Poland, King John II Casimir came to Dukla, on his way from Silesia back to the occupied country. One year later, on March 16, 1657, Dukla was destroyed and looted by Transilvanian army of George II Rakoczi. After the wars, the town declined. Furthermore, Dukla was again destroyed in the Great Northern War, and its wooden houses burned in 1724, 1725, 1738, and 1758. Since 1742, Dukla belonged to Jerzy August Mniszech, who in 1750 married Maria Amalia von Bruhl (the daughter of Heinrich von Bruhl). Together with his wife, Mniszech turned the town into a cultural center of the region, with a theatre, orchestra and a Masonic lodge. The Mniszechs competed with the Czartoryski family, which tried to turn their private town (Puławy in northern Lesser Poland) into the cultural capital of Poland (see also Izabela Czartoryska). In 1768 Jerzy Mniszech wrote a constitution for Dukla, in which he stated that all children were subject to education, regardless of their creed. In the spring of 1768, Dukla was the center of Bar Confederation. Here all Lesser Poland's leaders of the rebellion gathered, and headed towards Rymanów, where on July 6–7, 1768, a general meeting of local aristocracy took place. Among visitors at Dukla Castle was Casimir Pulaski, the father of American cavalry. In May 1772, after a number of skirmishes, Dukla was captured by Austrian soldiers, which marked First Partition of Poland. The palace complex was used as military barracks, and Mniszech's private army was forced into the Austrian Army. Dukla lost its significance, and was replaced by nearby Jasło as the biggest town of the area. In 1849, Dukla was visited by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, who intervened on behalf of the Habsburgs to suppress the uprising in Hungary. The town declined even further after the epidemics of cholera (1865–1867, 1873–1876, 1884–1885). Furthermore, the construction of railroads missed Dukla, and the town still does not have a rail station. In December 1914, Dukla was captured by the Imperial Russian Army, which after the Battle of Galicia tried to break Austrian positions in the Carpathian Mountains, in order to invade Hungarian plains. The