She is a fearsome apparition, and those who have encountered her speak of her undeniable beauty and beautiful blue crinoline. This is hardly surprising – after all, during her lifetime, she was one of the most elegant ladies of the Polish Rococo, a renowned savant and art lover. She dressed in blue crinolines from her early youth, and during her lifetime, she was nicknamed the "Blue Marquise."
Izabela Lubomirska, née Czartoryska, wife of Grand Marshal of the Crown Stanisław Lubomirski, is the one to whom the beautiful palace in Łańcut owes its splendor. Unrequitedly in love with her cousin, King Augustus Poniatowski, she consoled herself by zealously plotting political intrigues, collecting works of art, and embracing French fashion. In her will, she ordered that she be dressed in one of the blue dresses for her final journey.
She can reportedly be seen strolling through the sculpture gallery, or gazing thoughtfully at Canova's Cupid, for which her beloved pupil, Prince Henryk Lubomirski, posed as a child. Sometimes, the apparition can be encountered in the Duchess Marshal's former boudoir, reclining on a sofa. When someone enters the room unexpectedly, the apparition vanishes in an instant.
The Devil of Łańcut
This is what the neighbors of Stanisław Stadnicki called the starost of Zygwulsk, a nobleman living in the seventeenth century, who, with his quarrelsomeness and disobedience to authority, aroused fear and hatred among his subjects, neighbors and relatives.
Gathering a troop of troublemakers and cruel men like himself, he mocked court rulings, raided neighboring estates, burned, pillaged, and murdered. Punitive expeditions were launched against him, but Stadnicki, with his garrison and the fortified castle at Łańcut, was able to repel any siege.
Finally, he was killed by one of his comrades, apparently bribed by the Zebrzydowski family, whom Stadnicki had been a great nuisance to, ravaging their estates, burning their crops and kidnapping their subjects.
After his death, the Łańcut Devil haunts his former estates as a rider in a flowing cloak on a black horse, galloping along the road leading from the palace to the station, or in a less terrifying form - in the costume of a seventeenth-century nobleman - he walks through the rooms in the oldest part of the palace.
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