democratic power on their borders. The first of the three successive 18th-century partitions of Commonwealth territory that would eventually blot Poland from the map of Europe shocked the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, and made it clear to progressively minded individuals that the Commonwealth must either reform or perish. Even before the First Partition, a Sejm deputy had been sent to ask the French philosophes, Gabriel Bonnot de Mably and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to draw up a tentative constitutions for a new Poland. Mably had submitted his recommendations in 1770–71; Rousseau had finished his (Considerations on the Government of Poland) in 1772, when the First Partition was already underway. Supported by the more progressive magnates, such as the Czartoryski family, and King Stanisław August Poniatowski, a new wave of reforms was introduced. A major opportunity for reform seemed to present itself during the "Great" or "Four-Year Sejm" of 1788–92, which opened on 6 October 1788. Events in the world now played into the reformers' hands. Poland's neighbors were too occupied with wars – Prussia with France, Russia and Austria with the Ottoman Empire – and with their own internal troubles, to intervene forcibly in Poland. The new alliance between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Prussia seemed to provide security against Russian intervention. Reforms and successes The Party was established during the Four-Year Sejm (Great Sejm) of 1788–92 by individuals that sought reforms aimed at bolstering the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, including seeking to reassert Poland's independence from the Russian Empire. Its aim was to draft and pass legislation to fix the ailing Commonwealth. The Party worked to abolish the magnate and Russian dominated Permanent Council, and to enlarge the Polish Army. The Party was modeled after similar organization that recently began operating in revolutionary France. The party received support from all strata of Polish–Lithuanian society, from societal and political elites, including some magnates, through Piarist Enlightened Catholics, to the radical left. The Party's conservative, or right, wing, led by progressive magnates such as Ignacy Potocki, his brother Stanisław Kostka Potocki and Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, sought alliance with Prussia and advocated opposing King Stanisław August Poniatowski. The Party's centrists, including Stanisław Małachowski, wished accommodation with the King. The liberal left wing (the Polish Jacobins), led by Hugo Kołłątaj (hence also known as "Kołłątaj's Forge"), looked for support to the people of Warsaw. The Forge was among the most active and notable groups in the reform