The Duc d'Aumale has lost his only surviving son, the
Duo de Guise, a fact which may be one day of some political importance, as it leaves the Comte de Paris his uncle's heir as well as heir of the Bourbons. The young Duke seems to have been a hopeful lad, killed by the blunder which the European Princes, our own House excepted, seem to be making everywhere. They are educating their boys to death. Prince Albert just escaped being made a hopeless prig ; the heir of the Bonapartes was saved by Sedan from becoming a ricketty lad who talked truisms in four languages ; and the Kaiser of Austria was a few years ago compelled to tarn his heir out to grass, to let him live in the country without study, lest his brain should give way. Modern life presses hard on the heirs to thrones, who, besides learning all that other men learn, have to attain from childhood a complete mastery of four tongues, and to understand soldiership besides. The temptation is natural to fathers who think their sons will need every help they can obtain ; but as a rule, it is not the highly educated Sovereigns who prosper. The Palmerston type succeeds best, though Sir Cornewall Lewis might have made a decent King.
Previous page
