ROYAL FAMILY ALLIANCES.

MONSEEUR, mon frere," and "Madame, ma scour," were the superscriptions of thirty-nine letters which the Emperor Napoleon despatched some seven weeks ago to all t. e crowned heads of Europe. And thirty-nine answers duly

e back to Paris, addressed to " Sir, my brother." Scep-

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tic Frenchmen, nurtured in contempt of royalty and royal etiquette, gave vent to sneers in reading, one after another, the letters of all the Brothers and Sisters in the Monsieur; but scepticism, for once, was ill applied. There is little that is more true in the often fanciful modes of correspond- ence among the various classes of modern society than the assumed relationship of crowned heads. The great imperial letter-writer at Paris is, perhaps, together with the Brother at Constantinople, entitled to take the " Monsieur, mon frere," as little more than a phrase ; but all the rest of the thirty-nine can use it in good faith, and as imbued with real meaning. If not actual brothers and sisters, the sovereigns of Europe are certainly, nearly all of them, uncles, aunts, and cousins to each other, and altogether closely connected by ties of blood and family

alliances.

These royal blood alliances, if not of the highest importance in the modern development of nations, are, at least, of sufficient moment to deserve an attentive examination. They deserve it the more because the principle on which they are based is evidently gaining ground, and tending more and more, with every succeeding generation, to assert its force. The relation- ship of crowned heads, commencing in Germany, the land of princes, has -gradually spread from one end of Europe to the other, and is on the point of taking root in the New World, west of the Atlantic ocean. The growth of constitutional forms of government, so far from destroying these dynastic alliances, has only given them new life. By subtracting from the poli- tical power of kings and princes, it has made necessary an addition of social dignity and eminence such as only birth and the seclusion of the throne can give. The Kings of England in the fourteenth century could afford to marry commoners ; the Kings of the nineteenth cannot. On the other hand, the increased dignity of royal blood alliances brings in its train a not inconsiderable share of real power, national as well as inter- national. The actual position thus gained will be clearly established by passing in review the present family connections of the sovereigns of Europe.

The whole of the royal families of Europe, with but few exceptions, have, through more or less recent blood alliances, become German. They form, therefore, strictly speaking, but one great family ; which is divided, however, into two prominent groups. The first of these groups comprises the Roman Catholic, and the second, the Protestant houses. At the head of the first stands the House of Hapsburg, the founder, to a great extent, of the system of royal family alliances now existing in Europe This is expressed in the well-known distich :-

" Bella gerant alii : tu, felix Austria, nube : Nam gum Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus."

The matrimonial conquests of the early Hapsburgs were due

entirely to the physical advantages of the race. Maria of Bur- gundy, heiress of all the lands of Charles the Bold, was won, from among a hundred suitors and rivals, by Archduke Maxi- milian, solely on account of the manly beauty of the latter. The same cause brought the crowns of Aragon and Castille, together with the empire of the New World, to the son of Maximilian and Maria of Burgundy-, Archduke Philip. The romance of "Felix Austria" culminates in this Philip. He was so extremely hand- some, and so exquisitely well formed both in face and figure, that when he arrived in Spain the women in the streets fell down and worshipped him, to the intense chagrin of his wife Joanna, whose

jealousy was excited by the merest glance of Philip at others of her sex. The death of Philip, at the early age of twenty-eight, drove poor Queen Joanna into absolute madness. During an illness of several weeks, she did not leave his bedside ; and his spirit having fled, she fell into a deep swoon. Awaking from it, she heard that her husband had been buried. She instantly gave orders to raise his body from the tomb, to dress it in royal garments, and place it in her chamber by her side. Here the beloved corpse, remained for many months, the queen refusing to have it carried away, and even taking it with her on her royal progresses. Philip's and Joanna's son, the renowned Charles V., was still endowed with the most striking traits of the male beauty of the Hapsburgs; but after him the quality declined,

owing not a little to a too eager search after matrimonial alliances in which wealth and power were the chief objects. The union of Ferdinand I. with Anna, the heiress of Louis of Hungary, who fell in the battle of Mohacs, brought the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, with the appendages of Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, to the house of Austria ; but it also brought the here- ditary big under-lip of the Jagellons into the Hapsburg family, leaving it as an indestructible heirloom to the present day, even after the extinction of the direct male line and its continuance, since 1740, in the female branch of Hapsburg-Lorraine. The truth of the Hapsburg epigram, "Nam gum Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus," is undeniable ; yet it is equally true that the illus- trious house had to make sacrifices to Venus as others sacrificed to Mars.

In the last two or three generations the principle of matri- monial conquests has been completely abandoned by the Haps- burg family, and a further search after heiresses given up as unwise and undignified. This has been owing chiefly to the advice of several able statesmen, such as Kaunitz and Metternich ; but partly also to the absolute necessities of the case. The physical decline of the once strikingly handsome and manly race of Rudeph of Hapsburg had become so evident during the sway of Metternich as to leave no room for doubt ; and the thoughtful diplomatist, after the example of his predecessor, used all his influence to remedy the evil. He did not object to his master the Emperor catching flies the lifelong day while he was ruling Austria ; but his mind revolted at the idea of the empire going to perdition, under his successors, through the imbecility of its hereditary governors. One of the last acts of Metternich was to exclude the Archduke Francis Charles, father of the present Emperor, from the throne, although his mental capacities were held to be not at all inferior to those of the previous head of the family, Ferdinand I. The choice of the consort of Francis Joseph, too, is generally ascribed to the influence of the great minister, who, though banished from his post, continued to sway the imperial councils at Vienna. Certain it is that the marriage of the present Emperor was not directed by any political motives whatever, but had its ground in what poetical penny-a-liners are in the habit of calling the " personal attractions " of the bride. A sweeter face than that of the young Empress of Austria it is, indeed, scarcely possible to imagine, judging by several life- size photographs displayed at the late International Exhibi- tion, and which were always surrounded by a crowd of admirers. It is said that the intellect of the Empress is of as high an order as her beauty, she having received a very superior education from her father, Duke Maximilian in Bavaria. The family of these dukes in Bavaria, a rather distant branch of the reigning house, is not possessed of much wealth, but gifted rather with intellect and wisdom. Duke Maximilian is the author of more than a dozen volumes of travels, poems, and novels, all of them works of considerable literary and artistic value. He visited England in 1828, and brought away with him very favourable impressions on the political state of these islands, which he noticed in some of his books—published under the nom de plume or "Phantasus," and which he also, it is believed, instilled into the mind of his daughter. Through his marriage

with Elizabeth of Bavaria the Emperor of Austria has got into some curious family relationships, respectable enough in them- selves, yet very inferior to the matrimonial aspirations of the Hapsburgs of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One brother in-law of Kaiser Francis Joseph is the ex-King of Naples ; another the fallen sovereign's unlucky brother; and a third the non-sovereign Prince of Thurn-und-Taxis, grandson of the late postmaster-general of the Holy Roman Empire. This Thurn- und-Taxis family is a rather notable one in the annals of Germany.

The first of the house came from Milan to Frankfort-on-the-Main at about the same time that the Lombard goldsmiths and money- lenders settled in the City of London ; and while the latter got rich in advancing coin upon trinkets, the former rose to position and fame by starting a new idea. The first Thurn-und-Taxis under- took to carry letters from one point of Germany to the other, even so far as to the Tyrol ; and he did the business so well that his successors were made hereditary postmasters-general, or, by their

German title, "Reickslehnbare-Reichs-General-Erbpostmeister."

The carrying business proved exceedingly profitable, allowing the shrewd Lombards to purchase vast estates in Bavaria, Wiirtem- berg, and Bohemia, together with the title of prince, all which they possess to the present day. To become the brother-in-law of a living emperor is, however, the highest point at which a noble of Thurn-und-Taxis has yet arrived. The marriage has

brought the Emperor Francis Joseph into relationship with a vast number of his subjects, inasmuch as the Thurn-und-Taxis family is very large, chiefly in the Bohemian regions. The brother-in-law of the Emperor has no less than fifteen brothers and sisters ; all titular princes and princesses, of course, yet some of them only lieutenants and under-lieutenants of dragoons. The most prominent of the family is one Prince Rudolph of Thurn-und-Taxis, set down in the Austrian genealogical handbooks as a "Doctor of all the faculties "—Doctor siimintlicher Bechte —and married to a Miss Jenny Standler. Such an ency- clopesdical doctor, related, too, to a Kaiser, must, one should think, be useful in a country like Austria.

The most recent matrimonial alliances of the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine have been chiefly with the reigning families of Bavaria and Saxony, and, to a lesser degree, with Belgium.

But through a double link with King Leopold's family—the Emperor's brother, Archduke Maximilian, having married Leopold's only daughter, and the heir-apparent of Belgium, the Emperor's cousin, Archduchess Maria—the rulers of Austria have become indirectly connected with the great Coburg family and nine-touths of the sovereigns of Europe. It seems not unlikely that before long these family alliances will be trans- planted beyond Europe, and the united Coburg-Hapsburg race become the founder of new royal lines in America. There is a rumour, based upon the reports of the semi-official papers of Vienna, that should Archduke Maximilian, the son- in-law of King Leopold, become Emperor of Mexico, according to the wish of the "Notables " and the French Commander-in- Chief, his younger brother, Archduke Ludwig, will marry Princess Isabel, the heiress of Brazil, and thus unite the sove- reigns of two great American States in close alliance. The ma- trimonial scheme is not at all improbable, considering that the members of the house of Hapsburg are possessed, collectively and individually, of large fortunes, which would weigh against the imperial crown which Isabel of Braganza carries in her lap. The age of the candidates, too, is very fair, Archduke Louis being

twenty-two, and Princess Isabel eighteen. There are, therefore, still victories to be won in the old field for the house of Haps- burg, and matrimony, which already once brought an empire in the West, may give it a second time to "Felix Austria."

Close behind Austria, in the first, or Roman Catholic, group of the royal families of Europe, stands Bavaria. The matrimonial fortunes of the reigning house of Wittelsbach within the present century have been of a most extraordinary kind, expressed in the single fact that the family now counts among its members no less than ten empresses, kings, and queens. The history of these alliances furnishes a good illustration of the manner in which royal marriages are brought about in the present day. It is an evident mistake to 'suppose that there is a systematic desire on the part of all kings and queens to get their children and near relatives into powerful and widespread family connections, so as to realize the more completely the idea expressed in the epis- tolary intercourse that all are " brothers " and " sisters." Royal ladies, of course, will, other circumstances being equal, accept the most " brilliant " match ; but among princes comeliness of face and figure is decidedly the point most sought after. Now, as

the number of marriageable princesses is, and must be, always limited, and as it is clearly impossible that all should be hand- some and good-looking, it naturally happens that whenever there is a more than usually pretty house.full of daughters, the royal wooers are numerous, and offers of marriage come in from all quarters ; to use an expressive though somewhat vulgar English phrase, there is, in such a case, a general " run " after a certain family. It was precisely this which happened in Bavaria some forty years ago, and elevated the house of Wittelsbach from a comparatively unknown to one of the best connected royal families in Europe. In 1797, King Maximilian I. allied himself in second nuptials to the beautiful Princess Caroline of Baden, and the issue of this marriage were five daughters, born in three births, four of them being twins. Every one of these five daughters has become either an empress or a queen in her own right, or the mother of an emperor or empress. The eldest of the family of five, Elizabeth, married the King of Prussia, and her twin sister, Amelia, gave her hand to the present King of Saxony. The third daughter, Sophia, united herself to the heir- apparent of Austria, and would be empress at the present mo- ment, but for the interference of Prince Metternich, and his objection to more weak-minded Kaisers after Ferdinand I. As it is, Princess Sophia has become the mother of an emperor, with a very considerable share—if rumour is to be trusted—in the government of the empire. Sophia's twin sister married the King Frederick Augustus of Saxony, predecessor of the present ruler, and is now a queen dowager. Finally, the youngest of the five sisters gave her hand to the not very powerful, but learned and poetical "Phantasus," otherwise Dake Maximilian in Bavaria, to become, in course of time, the mother of an empress. She would have been mother of an em- press and a queen at the same time, but for the bold- ness of Joseph Garibaldi, who chose to march upon Naples with his red-jackets, against all diplomatic decorum and royal etiquette. The career of this poor ex-Queen of Naples is a romance of the saddest kind, from which, however, it would not be becoming at present to lift the veil. One does not know in what position she deserves the greatest pity, the poor ex-queen I whether in her silent nunnery at Augsburg, where she took refuge last year, or in her lonely palace at Rome, where no other vent is allowed to her energies but to shoot the cats of cardinals.

It is rather curious that while nearly all the female members of the house of Bavaria have made splendid matrimonial alliances, the male members have gone in a contrary direction, and married ladies of mediocre fortune, if not absolute plebeians. While all the princesses of Wittelsbach are evidently ambitions, the princes seem to be a quiet, easy-going sort of men, given to rest and contemplation, to tobacco and lager-beer, and disliking the pomp and ceremony involved in the presence of high-born spouses. The ex-King of Greece, fat, indolent, and good- humoured, is a fair type of his family. Put on a throne for which he did not care a straw, through the influence of his power- ful aunts and cousins, he left the troubles and honours of govern- ment to his active spouse, his chief personal anxiety being to keep a never-failing supply of Bavarian ale near his classic resid- ence at the foot of the Acropolis. When dire revolution made this supply fail, he was glad enough to shake the dust of Athens from his feet, and to retreat to his beloved sandhills of Munich. The present sovereign of Bavaria is a man very much of the same temper; but still more so is his uncle Charles, the only brother of ex-King Louis, and half-brother of the beautiful pair of twin princesses who all became the wives of Caesars. Prince Charles himself never even aspired to a noble lady, far less to a princess. When a lad, he had a French teacher, one Monsieur Bolley, who grounded him well in the purest Parisian accent, and sometimes took him on a French-speaking promenade round the old city of Munich, and close by the house where lived Madame Bolley, and Mademoiselle Marie Anne Bolley, and a host of little Bolleys, all talking the purest Parisian accent. Prince Charles, in his homely way, took a liking to the Bolleys, and particularly to Made- moiselle Marie Anne, who, it is to be supposed, spoke French better than even old Monsieur—and his admiration being suffi- ciently intensified, he announced one day to his papa, King Maxi- milian I., that he was going to marry Mademoiselle Marie Anne. It occasioned a terrible scene at the Schloss, as may be imagined ; but the end of it was that Prince Charles did marry Miss Bolley, threats and promises notwithstanding. To hide the family dis- grace, as far as possible, the young lady was elevated, some time after, to the rank of Baroness of Bayersdorf—ang/id, "Bava- rian village "—in her own right, added to which was the gift of

several domains from the royal father-in-law. Prince Charles and his low-born consort lived very happily, though in great seclusion, for thirty years ; and after her decease, the Prince married another damsel of humble origin, ennobled since under the name of Henrietta von Frankenburg. But these are by no means the only "morganatic " marriages in the royal family of Bavaria. The brother of the Empress of Austria, eldest son and heir of Duke Maximilian, was married at the parish church of Augsburg, in 1857, to a tradesman's daughter, for whom he afterwards obtained the title of Baroness von Wallersee. This marriage gave great offence, at Vienna as well as at Munich, and to allay the storm, Prince Ludwig had to renounce all his rights and family claims in favour of a younger brother. To judge by what took place at the respective marriages of old Prince Charles and of this young Prince Ludwig, it seems that " morganatic " alliances are much more strictly prohibited in Bavaria at the present time than they were fifty years ago.

It may not be uninteresting, on this occasion, to say a few words concerning "morganatic" marriages, a matter about which a good deal of misapprehension prevails. Morganatic marriages are of very old origin, so old, in fact, that the very meaning of the word has been lost. The term is commonly explained as deriving from the German word "Morgen-gabe," a morning gift, the elucidation being that the husband gave to his morganatic bride a present the day after the nuptials, instead of making her the partner of his whole fortune on the marriage itself. But this explanation is evidently somewhat far-fetched, besides being quite devoid of historical proof. Certain it is that the word is of Lombard growth ; for the expression "matrimonia ad legem mor- ganaticam contracta" is frequently to be met with in documents of North Italian families, long before it came into use in Ger- many. The thing itself is clearly of Roman origin, being no- thing else than a revival of the coemtio, in fashion among the conquerors of the world. It is well known that the ancient Romans had three forms of marriage—the confarreatio, the coemtio, and the uses. The first, a civil as well as religious con- tract, was concluded before a priest and ten witnesses, and con- ferred on the offspring the rights and honours of patrimi et matrimi ; while the second was a mere civil engagement, with far lesser privileges to the children ; and the third constituted but a civil partnership, sanctified by nothing else but the legal proof of twelve months' uninterrupted cohabitation. The revival of the um the Roman Catholic Church could not possibly allow, even to princes in the feudal ages ; but priests winked at the introduction of the coemtio among the great ones of the world, and this form of marriage, in consequence, soon became highly fashionable among lords and princes. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the so-called mor- ganatic marriages were exceedingly numerous among the great barons, dukes, and margraves of Germany, and notable so far as they bad to fulfil an important political purpose. The absence of a law of primogeniture in nearly all the fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire made it necessary that some means should be devised to cheek the too great division of territories, and there seemed nothing readier than the matrimonia ad legem morganaticam contracta. An instance of the application of this remedy exists in the case of the descendants of Duke William of Brunswick-Liineburg, one of the ancestors of Queen Victoria, who died in 1490. He left seven sons, among whom, according to custom, the very moderate-sized duchy was to be divided. But the sons, as usual, quarrelled in the division, and, after some preliminary fighting, ended with an agreement that one of the seven should be the heir of all the territory, and perpetuate the family, and the rest should take refuge in morganatic alliances. Chance was to decide the question of succession, and the seven sone of Duke William drew lots accordingly. The great prize fell to the sixth son, Prince George, who at once took possession of the duchy and married an illustrious princess of the house of Saxony. The eldest of the seven brothers remained a bachelor all his life, and the others went into the wars, with the exception of the fourth, Prince Frederick, who wooed and won the daughter of his private secretary—"a pearl of sweet blessed beauty," say the quaint old historians—and outlived all his brothers in fourscore years of happy existence. The descendants of the morganatic alliance of Prince Frederick flourish to this day in Germany as Barons von Liineburg.

The political importance of these morganatic marriages en- gendered early a code of laws respecting them, which has re- mained in force to the present day. According to these statutes, as first laid down, only independent princes and lords, or more correctly, princes and lords holding directly of the Holy

Roman Empire, and with no other sovereign above them but the Kaiser, were allowed to contract morganatic marriages. All

these lords, though of widely different rank and fortune, were held to be ebenbiirlig, or upon an equality of blood, and the rest of mankind were considered many degrees beneath them. The union of the Emperor himself with the poorest daughter of the most insignificant of the five hundred barons of the Holy Roman Empire was held to be perfectly legitimate, conferring the rights of succession upon all the offspring of such alliance; while but a step below the alliance became morganatic. The children of morganatic marriages could receive at the utmost the allodial property of the father, but were not allowed to bear his name, nor, under any circumstances, to succeed to the honours, titles, dignities, and hereditary possessions of the family. Such is still the law on the subject, acknowledged as binding by all the princes of Germany, although it was slightly modified at the Congress of Vienna, and was, more recently, broken through in one very notable instance. After the suicide of the Holy Roman Empire, and its galvanic resurrection under the pre- sent form of the Germanic Confederation, the fivescore of formerly independent princes who were " mediatized," or made subject to other sovereigns, obtained as a special pri- vilege the right of being still considered ebenbartig, together with all their families, in matrimonial matters. Accordingly, as the law now stands, all the Sovereign Princes of Ger- many may marry into any of the noble families belong- ing to this formerly independent class, and secure to their children the right of succession while having a wide choice to themselves. But practically this right is very seldom, if ever, made use of, and the great privilege conferred upon the poor "mediatized" princes, and for which they fought very hard at the Congress of Vienna, has remained a dead letter. Their daughters are quite ready to marry kings and emperors; but the kings themselves are not. They seem to prefer, in all cases, to marry either an undeniable princess, or, under adverse circum- stances, and should their tastes so lead them, a milliner or an actress. The medium of " mediatized" alliances is finding appa- rently no favour with German princes, their motto being "Aut

aut nullus."

Before concluding this subject of morganatic marriages, it is necessary to say something of the breach of the princely code of laws just alluded to, which is not without political importance. The last of the " legitimate " line of the house of Ziihringen, rulers of the Grand Duchy of Baden, died in 1830, and the country was on the point of being taken possession of by the King of Bavaria, the next collateral heir, when a claimant to the throne appeared in the person of Prince Leopold, offspring of a morganatic union between Grand Duke Charles Frederick, who died in 1818, and a Madame Geyersberg. Prince Leopold quietly took possession of the government, without entering into any diplomatic explanations on the difference of morganatic or other marriages ; but, instead of it, proclaimed a very liberal charter for Baden, which gave the highest satisfaction throughout the country. In the meanwhile, however, the Diet at Frankfort, on the proposition of Austria and Prussia, had ordered an "execution" in the grand duchy, and Bavarian troops strode in forced marches towards Carlsruhe and Freiburg. A conflict seemed imminent, for• the people of Baden were determined, to a man, to take the part of their " illegiti- mate" ruler, when, just at the nick of time, there occurred the French Revolution of July, 1830, with its echo in most of the smaller States of Germany. The fate of the ruler of Brunswick made all the crowned heads of the Confederation tremble for their own safety, and the threatened " execution" was postponed for the moment. It proved a postponement sine die, for it has not been forthcoming yet, although morganatic Leopold has gone to his fathers, and the race of "illegitimate" sovereigns has been perpetuated by two of the sons of the usurper. This has been the most serious breach hitherto made in the matrimonial code of the great family of German sovereigns ; and, to judge by some very recent facts, it almost seems as if the case is to be made a precedent for further neglect of the law. The present

claimant to the Duchy of Holstein, Prince Frederick of Schleswig- Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg is well known to be the off spring of a morganatic marriage, notwithstanding which fact he is openly -backed by the majority of German sovereigns as the only legitimate heir of Holstein. It seems probable, therefore, that the old fiction of morganatic alliances—sometimes called "left-handed marriages," though for no cause whatever—will soon expire, like other mediaeval fictions.

The group of Roman Catholic sovereigns which has for its

being ruled, like all the rest of Europe, by Teutonic blood. grown big women, did not at all like to see so many good-

Alexis demurred, saying be was unprepared ; the fact being that he was living with a Finnish damsel, and inspired, besides, by his mother with hatred of all foreigners, particularly Germans. Thereupon Peter got into a towering passion, declaring that he would kill his son on the spot; but, cooling down, commanded him to get ready to be married immediately. From among the number of fair visitors, the Czar picked out Princess Charlotte Sophia of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel as the bride of his son and future Empress of Russia, and the marriage was solemnized with great pomp on the 25th of October,

1711. The union, as might have been expected, was a wretched one in the extreme. Alexis, not content with neglect- ing his wife, a quiet and meek German girl, with a heart all tenderness and affection, at times went so far as to ill-treat her cruelly in the presence of strange women whom he brought to the Court. This was more than she could bear, and, lingering away in pain and sorrow, she died—so it was stated officially—in the summer of 1715. Czar Peter got furious at seeing his plans thus overthrown by his son, and on account of the cruelly shown to the princess, and for other reasons, had Alexis thrown into prison soon after. The heir to the throne was solemnly tried before a special Court summoned by the Czar, and condemned to death. Two days after his condemnation Alexis died in prison —some say a natural death, but according to others, by poison. A fearful tale was rumoured at the time that Peter himself had beheaded his son. Here ends the story of the first matrimonial alliance of Russia with the royal families of Western Europe. But a most extraordinary piece of romance is tacked to it by some historians. On the faith of several letters of a French traveller, the Chevalier Bossu, and a lengthened article in the Journal Encyclopldique of February 15, 1777, it is stated that the unhappy wife of Prince Alexis did not really die in Russia, but by the connivance of some trusty friends was only declared dead, and a wax figure buried in her name, in order that she might escape from the tyranny of her worthless husband. The story goes further, that not trusting herself back to her family, all under dread of the mighty Czar, she fled to America, married a French Count d'Aubant, returned at his death to Europe, settled for some time at Paris, in the suburb of Montmartre, and finally died at Brussels, at the age of seventy-eight. The account thus given is very circumstantial, and those who take an interest in the matter may follow it up in the Journal before cited, in which all the particulars are given, together with an official refutation of the Russian Government—given under date of May 15, 1778 —which the Czar's Minister of Foreign Affairs thought it neces- sary to address to the editor of the publication. It is interesting to notice that the matter about which the Russian diplomatist seems most incredulous is, not that a dead princess should come to life again, but that she should condescend to marry a com- moner.

Notwithstanding the tragic finale of the first family alliance between the house of Romanoff and the reigning princes of Germany, the system was continued, leading, as in other cases, to a complete substitution of Teutonic royalty for the ancient native line. According to the will of Peter I., his two daughters, offspring of his union with Catharine, the Livonian peasant girl, were ordered to marry German princes ; and though Eliza- beth, the younger, escaped the proposed union with the ill- favoured Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Bevern, Anne, the eldest, had to give her hand to Duke Frederick IX. of Holstein- Gottorp, who thereby became the founder of the now reigning Imperial family of Russia. The German origin of the new line was strengthened by every subsequent alliance entered into, not only by the heads of the house, but by all the other members of the family. The male line of the Romanoffs became extinct with Peter I., and the female branch with his daughter Catharine, after whom there were none but rulers of purely German blood. The offspring of the union of Peter's eldest daughter, Anne, with the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, ascended the throne only to be hurled from it again by his own wife, Catharine of Anhalt-Zerbst, the daughter of a poor officer in the Prussian service, known in history as Catharine II. Not a few of the characteristics of this Catharine may be dis- covered in all her descendants, justifying, to some extent, the de- signation of Anhalt-Zerbst, instead of Holstein-Gottorp, which is given by some writers to the new dynasty. The son of Catharine, Paul, became the father of three emperors and grandfather of a fourth, the present sovereign of Russia. All of them strictly fol- lowed the injunction of Peter L to enter into matrimonial alliances with the reigning houses of Germany. Czar Paul gave his hand, successively, to a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt and a princess of

Wiirtemberg ; his son and successor, Alexander I., married a princess of Baden ; the next emperor, Constantine—autocrat of Russia for the term of a week, December 1-0, 1825—allied himself to a princess of Saxe-Coburg; his successor, Nicholas, married a daughter of the King of Prussia ; and, finally, the present Emperor, Alexander II., obtained, like his grandfather, a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt. Together with the other members of their family, the rulers of Russia went through a regular cycle of blood alliances with a number of German houses, which seemingly became exhausted at the end of the fourth generation. Only one of the sovereigns stepped beyond the charmed circle of royal alliances, for which he had to suffer by the loss of his crown. It is certain that Grand Duke Constantine's forced resignation of the throne was partly, if not chiefly, on account of his morganatic union with the Polish Countess of Grudzinska, con- cluded after his divorce from his first wife, Princess Julia of Saxe-Coburg. The morganatic marriage took place in May, 1820, a month after the divorce had been obtained ; but it was made public only in December, 1821, when such pressure was immediately brought to bear upon him that, in the course of a month, he signed the abdication of his birthright. He repealed the consent at the end of a year; but was made once more to sign the renunciation in December, 1823. Nevertheless, at the death of Alexander I., Constantine allowed himself to be installed Emperor, and was proclaimed sovereign at St. Petersburg and throughout the vast realm of Russia. What were the means employed to obtain his final abdication has never yet become known, and probably never will ; but there is little doubt that his Polish marriage was the main cause of his being forced to the act.

The reigning family of Russia can boast at this moment of being more intimately and more widely connected by blood alliances with other dynasties than all the rest of the royal houses in Europe, except one. This one exception is in the case of the royal family of Great Britain. Next to our own gracious Sovereign, the Emperor of Russia has the greatest right to address the princes of the civilized world as Brothers and Sisters. Through his mother, a Prussian princess, and his wife, a sister of the reigning Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Emperor is intimately allied to all the crowned heads of Germany, while the union of his sister Olga with the Crown Prince of Wiirtemberg connects him closely with the royal families of Holland, and Sweden, and Norway. The Czar's relationship with the family of King Leopold of Belgium, as well as the house of Hapsburg, is very intimate, through the alliance of Grand Duke Constantine with a princess of Saxony, which union also creates a near relation to the reigning house of Portugal and—in two ways—to the family of Victor Emanuel. The new line of Denmark is but a branch of that of Russia, and alliances between the imperial house of Holsteiu-Gottorp and the now royal house of Holstein-Sonder- burg-Gliicksburg have not ceased for the last five generations. The King of Prussia being the uncle of the Czar, the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt his brother-in-law, and the Duke of Saxe- Coburg his cousin, it cannot bo said that Alexander II. is not related to the royal family of Great Britain. Even with the Emperor of the French, Alexander II. can claim relationship, both through his brother-in-law, the Crown Prince of Wiirtemberg, who is cousin of Prince Napoleon, and through the Leuchtenberg family, which for the last generation has become incorporated with the reigning house of Russia. The family ties which bind the imperial line of France to the other royal houses of Europe being very slender, it is not at all impossible that this twofold relationship with Czar Alexander II. —which his Majesty, it is stated, has repeatedly acknowledged in friendly letters to the ruler of France—has had some influence upon the growth of Russian sympathies at the Court of the Tuileries.

The blood alliances with Russia have been of vast advantage to not a few German families, but to none more so than to the royal house of Prussia. But for the mighty protection of the rulers of the great northern empire, the Hohenzollerns would have been erased, half a century ago, from the list of reigning sovereigns. It is well known that Napoleon intended, in 1807, to strike Prussia from the map of Europe, and only the active interference of Czar Alexander and his influence upon the French

conqueror during the confidential interview at Tilsit, saved it from this fate. It is doubtful whether Prussia, once annihilated, would have risen again, not being held together by any bonds of nationality, religion, or at least laws and customs sanctified by age, but forming only a detached mass of little territories, con- quered, bought, and fraudulently obtained—as in the case of had worse consequences than making two people unhappy for the In some way connected with Prussia, and more still with rest of their lives. Frederick the Great conceived a strong an- Russia, is the sudden rise of the house of Saxe-Coburg, due to tipathy against the royal house of England—the head of which a series of fortunate family alliances unprecedented since the certainly was somewhat in fault in the " breach of promise" days of the famous Hapsburg marriages. The little principality matter—and left this dislike to his successors up to almost the of Saxe-Saalfeld-Coburg was entirely unknown but half a century present generation. As the State policy of Russia still follows ago, the few hundred square miles of ground composing its area the impulse given it by the energy of Peter I., so the actions of being lost on the map of Europe. At the Congress of Vienna, Prussian kings up to this moment have been scarce anything else where Metternich and Talleyrand were remodelling the map, it than keeping in the line prescribed by the second Frederick, even was settled, as a matter of course, that Saxe-Coburg should be as regards matrimonial alliances. For this reason the liberals of struck out, or, as it was politely called, "mediatized." This would Prussia attach great weight to the union of the present heir- have been infallibly done, but for the interference of one apparent with the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, as individual, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Saalfeld-Coburg, a young man inaugurating an entirely new line of policy. The importance of of twenty-five. Although not directly interested in the rule of the alliance to the house of Hohenzollern will probably become Saxe-Coburg, being the youngest brother of the reigning duke, apparent before long, in the final struggle between king and he had a great objection to be mediatized, and loudly protested parliament ; and it is not at all impossible that the English mar- against it in the council of the sovereigns. Metternich smiled ;

riago will save the dynasty. but Czar Alexander, in whose suite Prince Leopold had come to

The present royal family of Prussia is one of the largest in Vienna with the rank of general in the Russian army—which Europe, counting no less than fifty-one members, including the he entered in consequence of the marriage of his sister Julia branches of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigma- with Grand Duke Constantine—took up the case of his young ringen, incorporated by decree of March 20th, 1850, with the friend with great warmth, and the consequence was that Saxe- main line. There is not a reigning house in Germany which is Saalfeld-Coburg remained on the map of Europe. From not more or less intimately connected with the royal family of Vienna, Prince Leopold went to London, were he had been the Hohenzollern, either through direct or indirect alliances. Morga- year before in the Czar's suite, and after a short sojourn here untie marriages wero formerly almost unknown in the Prussian was united to Princess Charlotte, only daughter of the Prince family; but they have been introduced of late, as well as frequent Regent, and heiress of the throne of Great Britain. It was divorces. King Frederick William III., at the death of his first this union—in the conclusion of which the ambassadors of wife, the beautiful Queen Louise, united himself to a Fraulein Russia and Prussia, more than a match for a simple-minded von Harrach, the lady being twenty-four at the time, and the king Prince of Orange, played an important part—which laid the near upon sixty. This introduced the convenient matrimonia foundation of the rise of the Saxe-Coburg family. Prince ad kgem morganaticam, adhered to at this moment by five Leopold, from this time forth, stood conspicuous in the eyes of members of the royal family. The most notable of these so-called the world ; and although he lost a great part of his influence "left-handed " marriages is that of Prince Adalbert, first cousin by the early death of his wife, and something more by the of the king, with Theresa Ellsler, an actress, and sister of the divorce of his sister from the heir-apparent of Russia, still his more celebrated dancer Fanny Ellsler. Theresa was in the habit own capabilities as soldier and statesman did not allow him to of travelling about with Fanny, and being possessed of a tall and sink, and he was generally considered a man of no slight graceful figure, which brought her the nickname " the majestic," promise. When the Greeks wanted a king, in 1829, he was the she assisted in the more difficult poses of the great dancing first candidate to whom all looked, and to whom the crown was genius. In the course of their peregrinations, the artist sisters offered as of necessity. He accepted it, as is well known, in the came to Berlin, where they found numerous admirers, among them first instance ; and declined it only in the end as being too much Prince Adalbert, then a man of forty, of rather handsome encumbered by diplomatic weeds and thorns. Then came the appearance. Theresa " the majestic " became intimate with the crown of the Belgians, the hesitation about which was not of prince, and played her cards so well that he made her his lawful long duration. As sovereign of the youngest kingdom in morganatic wife some time in July, 1851. The lung, Frederick Europe, his position at first seemed difficult; but he greatly,,/ strengthened it by a most wise and statesmanlike course of action. By marrying a daughter of Louis Philippe, he allayed the jealousy of powerful France, and a few years after, when one more crown, that of Portugal, came to be in the market, he was enabled to offer it to his nephew, Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg. The hand of the Queen of the British Isles, the next great prize to be bestowed upon royal blood, was, again, not given away without the counsel of King Leopold, and, be it chance or well-achieved design, it fell to the lot of another prince of Saxe-Coburg, first cousin of the king. Had there been more crowns to be given away within the next twenty years, no doubt they would have been bestowed upon Coburg princes, if, perchance, any crownless members of the family should happen to be still in the world. But there have been no vacant thrones for some time past, and only at this moment there appears one ;in view in the ancient empire of Mexico. That it should be offered to the son-in-law of King Leopold, Archduke Maximilian of Austria, is but natural. It must be granted that Leopold is the " king-maker" of modern Europe; and it cannot be denied that he deserves it to be. Happy it would be for Europe if' he had made all her kings !

Notwithstanding the high alliances of the Saxe-Coburg family, morganatic faux pas have not been wanting even in this illustrious house. The brother of the King of Portugal, Prince Leopold Francis of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, born in 1824, and for some time a general in the Austrian service, gave his hand, _in April, 1861, to a Miss Constance Geiger, the daughter of a poor teacher of music at Vienna. The marriage made a great noise at the time, being deemed an insult, not only to all the high relatives of the prince, but to German royalty in general. It appears that Prince Leopold, in the first instance, intended to make the matter as respectable as possible, by getting a title for his young bride—the easiest thing, under ordinary circumstances, in Austria, titular honours and dignities being plentiful in the market, and cheap as blackberries—but that, in his case, he met unexpected difficulties, arising in high quarters, it being ex- pected, probably, that he would give up his morganatic ideas on finding himself driven to unite his lot with an absolute and un- disguised plebeian. But Prince Leopold, either fairly in love or with a soul above buttons, thought otherwise. He not only married Miss Constance Geiger, but made the ceremony as grand as possible, riding to church, at the side of his fair bride, in a State carriage, emblazoned with the world-famous arms of Saxe-Coburg, and with lackeys and outriders innumerable. Behind, in a long file, followed all the Geigers, great and little, and half the personnel of the theatres of Vienna: old and new acquaintances of the happy family, whose previous business had been chiefly with the stage and stage melody. The word " Geiger " in German signifies fiddler, and there being in the bridal procession several other persons with equally conspicuous names, such as "Horn," "Piper," and " Singer," the Punch of Vienna had a good time of it for weeks to come. The error of their ways was immediately discovered by the imperial authorities, who then granted unasked the title and dignities which they had before refused. Prince Leopold's morganatic spouse is now a Baroness von Ruttenstein, duly enrolled in the long list of Austrian noblesse, comprising a notable portion of the population of the empire.

Very similar to the ascendancy of the house of Saxe-Coburg, has been the recent rise of the family of Schleswig-Holstein- Sonderburg-Gliicksburg, surpassing even the former in rapidity and seeming brilliant prospects. The head of the family, Prince Charles, is at this moment a simple country gentleman, residing at Kiel, in Holstein, and possessed of little else but his title and the consciousness of being the descendant of a branch line of the ancient Counts of Oldenburg, elected to fill the Danish throne in the middle of the fifteenth century. In the great squabble between the Danes and the German Confedera- tion, which has annoyed the civilized world for the last quarter of a century, Prince Charles, the same as all the other members of his family, with one exception, took part on the German side, with the result of gaining a great deal of what is called popu- larity, and of losing a considerable amount of real property. Prince Charles himself has no children, his family consisting of five brothers and three sisters ; and it was the third of these brothers, Prince Christian, who, alone of all the members of the two houses of Holstein-Augustenburg and Holstein-Glticks- burg took the Danish part in the struggle—not at the beginning, but after some sort of decision had been come to on the field of battle. It was this simple act of Prince Christian—denominated " apostacy " by his irate friends and relatives—which gave two

crowns to the hitherto obscure family of Schleswig-Holstein- Sonderburg Gliicksburg, and a prospect of several more before the end of another generation. The step which Prince Christian took of going over to the Danish side was, no doubt, dictated by ambition; but it was honest and fair enough in itself, and quite allowable under the circumstances. When the great Powers of Europe undertook the solution of the Schleswig- Holstein puzzle, the first question which naturally presented itself was to find a king for the Danish monarchy, in the event of the decease of childless Frederick VII., the last of the direct line of the house of Oldenburg. The next collateral heir would have been the head of the house of Schleswig- Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg ; but it was too much to expect the Danes to accept him as king, after having openly waged war against them. The same serious objection applied to all the other members of the house of Augustenburg, as well as of the younger line of Gliicksburg, and there remained nothing, therefore, if a collateral heir was to be chosen at all, but to accept Prince Christian of Gliicksburg, the only one of all the German relatives of the king not compromised by anti-Danish proceedings. Even he was mistrusted by the war party at Copenhagen, and denounced as secretly imbued with the feelings of his countrymen ; nevertheless, the plenipotentiaries of the great Powers nominated him heir-apparent, in the famous protocol signed at London, May 8, 1862. The Danish Chambers at first refused to ratify this agreement, declaring they would accept no German prince as king, even though he professed to be on the Danish side. Another rigsdag was thereupon called together, the first having been dissolved ; but the result was still the same. It was only the third parliament, elected under very peculiar circumstances, which at last adopted the nomination of Prince Christian. So far, his road had been an extraordinarily difficult one, and even at this stage there were great obstacles in the way to the throne, which few expected he would be able to overcome. It was more than awkward in his position that he possessed no private fortune whatever, his own family treating him like an outcast, and the rigsdag venting its spleen against the "German prince" by reducing him to the smallest allowance ever granted to an heir-apparent. Prince Christian, however, was not overcome by these difficulties, but fought his way manfully, prejudices and want of cash notwithstanding. His quiet and statesmanlike behaviour in a position beset with em- barrassments on all sides—violent parties in the clubs of Copenhagen ; ministers divided among themselves ; and a king with a morganatic consort whose power was known, yet whose rank was not acknowledged—all this, and his tact on trying occasions, gained him numerous friends, who formed in course of time a phalanx around him. Prince Christian was equally fortunate in making friends abroad, among others, and best of all, the Nestor of European sovereigns, King Leopold of Belgium. There were frequent visits from Copenhagen to Brussels, and "society " at the former place being, for reasons already hinted at, of an undesirable nature, King Leopold consented to " bring out " the eldest daughter of Prince Christian at the Court of Laeken. The illustrious young lady, pretty, vivacious, and highly accomplished, soon became a favourite with the aged king, and . . . . but the result is known to English readers in the event of March 10, 1863.

The marriage of the heir-apparent of Great Britain with Princess Alexandra has brought our royal family into some peculiar relationships, which may have the effect of adding still more confusion to the great Schleswig-Holstein puzzle. While the present King of Denmark is father of the Princess of Wales, his rival, as far as the German Duchies are concerned, Prince Frederick of Augustenburg, is likewise nearly connected, by marriage, with Queen Victoria ; and both on the Gliicksburg and the Augustenburg side there are a host of morganatic princes and princesses which bring the relationship down to the very root of the Schleswig-Holstein temple of the winds. Prince Frederick of Augustenburg, the pretender, gave his hand, in 1856, to Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, whose mother is a daughter of the late Duchess of Kent, by her first husband, and consequently half-sister of Queen Victoria. The house of Hohenlohe-Langenburg belongs to the " mediatized " families of Germany, and does not stand very high, since the Hohenlohes, de- testing the law of primogeniture, have split into no less than eleven different lines, all rich in members but poor in real property. Nevertheless, in becoming the rival of the new King of Denmark, the Prince of Augustenburg has the consolation that the family of the former is not in much better position. The eldest brother of King Christian, head of the house of Schleswig-Holstein-Gliicks" burg, is, as already mentioned, in the position of a country squire in Holstein, and scarcely any members of his family have risen above this rank. The eldest of the eight brothers and sisters, Princess Marie, aunt of our Princess of Wales, married, in 1837, a Colonel Lasperg, who died in 1843; after which she united herself in second nuptials to a Count Hohenthal, a gold-stick in waiting at the Court of Dresden. The second aunt of the Princess of Wales is widow of the semi-lunatic Duke of Anhalt-Bernburg ; while the third, whose history is said to be spiced with romance, has become abbess of the monastery of Itzehoe. Dryden's

" I have a sister, abbess in Terceras, Who lost her lover on her bridal day,"

is said to have been put, with a variation, in the mouth of King Christian, in a spiteful play performed at Copenhagen. The five brothers of the king, including the bead of the family, are alto- gether social nonentities ; two being country squires, the third an officer in the Austrian service, and the fourth and fifth majors in the army of Prussia. Consequently, though the rise of the Gliicksburg family has been more rapid than that of the Cobnrgs, it will probably be confined, at least for some time, to the sons and daughters of King Christian, the Leopold of his house. How- ever, as it is, the achievement is already something marvellous.

But a dozen years ago, an unknown member of a quite unknown family, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg- Gliicksburg has now become a king whose voice is heard in the councils of Europe, with a daughter destined to wear the diadem of the noblest empire in the world, and last, not least, a son pos- sessing the privilege of addressing his own father as " Monsieur, mon frine." It is not often that a youngster of eighteen becomes a king before his sire, and has the pleasure of complimenting his progenitor on his accession to the throne. But for the existence of royal family alliances, the case might never have happened ; for were not the sister a Princess of Wales, no wind could pos- sibly have drifted the young Gliicksburg midshipman upon the throne of the Hellenes.

The story of the rise of the two houses of Saxe-Coburg and of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gliicksburg serves to illustrate, better than any other example, the political importance of royal family alliances in our days. Their influences upon the affairs of nations is indirect, more than direct, and calculated rather to serve the gradual increase of international relations than to exercise any striking and immediate influence upon the political condition of the various States of Europe. All the family alliances between the houses of Piedmont and of Hapsburg- Lorraine were unable to prevent the war between Austria and Italy, the interests of the two States being diametrically opposed. Where this is not the case, or not to such an extent, the influence exercised may be very powerful, if not always very visible. The obedience of Prussia, and of most of the smaller German sovereigns, to commands from St. Petersburg, which forms one of the most notable features in the history of Germany for the last half-century, has had its cause undeniably in family alliances ; and it is the same cause which is operating now in a different direction, by connecting the reigning families of such secondary States as Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, and some of the members of the German Confederation, with Great Britain. That such thrones of the world as happen to be vacant from time to time should be filled from among those royal houses which possess either the greatest number of available members, or the main share of political power, is an obvious mode of propagating this influence, and one which is looked upon very favourably by modern diplomatists. Thus the organization of family alliances becomes an important means for preventing conflicts among nations, the struggle being transferred from the field of battle, covered with armed hosts, to a comfortable room with a large table in the centre, around which a number of elderly gentlemen meet in friendly delibera- tion. Such a war as that of the Spanish Succession, which de- vastated the greater part of Europe at the beginning of last cen- tury, would be all but impossible in our days. The system of family alliances at that period was so imperfectly developed as scarcely to leave any choice but a decision of the sword, the great houses of Bourbon and Hapsburg possessing almost a monopoly of the thrones of Continental Europe. A Spanish Suc- cession difficulty at the present moment would scarcely give more trouble than that caused by the recent vacancy of the thrones of Belgium, Denmark, and Greece. Some prince of one of the minor German houses, related to each and all the sovereigns of the leading European States, would speedily find his way to

Madrid and be invested with the royal purple, at no greater cost than the travelling expenses of a few plenipotentiaries and the filling up of a few reams of foolscap for protocols and inter- national treaties. It must be acknowledged an immense gain in the progress of civilization.

The gain is one in which all countries of Europe have shared alike, but the initiative of which is due mainly to Great Britain. By using its strong arm to overthrow the immense influence of the great Bourbon race of kings and reducing it within proper limits, England was foremost in establishing the new system of royal family alliances, which serves as basis as well as crown of the modern political edifice called the Balance of Power. The system was not only theoretically, but practically inaugurated by Great Britain, inasmuch as the sovereigns of this country sought their consorts among the minor families of Germany at a time when the houses of Hapsburg and Bourbon reddened the battlefields of Europe in their search after heiresses. From the time of James I. till now, this policy of family alliances has been adhered to steadfastly, notwithstanding many temptations to the contrary. After the accession of the house of Hanover, the sovereigns of Great Britain, so far from seeking high family connections, fell into the opposite danger of pitching their

matrimonial aspirations rather too low. George I. married Sophia of Zell; George II., Willielmina of Anspach; George III., Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz ; George IV., Caroline of Brunswick; and William IV., Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen—all of them princesses not only of very uninfluential families, but, some of them at least, in absolute poverty. The latter qualifica- tion does not apply to the alliance of Queen Victoria with a

prince of the house of Saxe-Coburg, this family being possessed of a good private fortune, partly gained by the father of the late Prince Consort and partly owing to a large legacy left by the last Duke of the line of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, who died in 1825. A great portion of this fortune came from England in a rather singular manner. Duke Frederick IV., the last of the line of Saxe-Gotha, was a very eccentric personage, but well disposed and kind-hearted ; and during a journey to this country he took it into his head to stake a considerable amount of his annual income upon a policy of life insurance, the largest which had ever been effected upon a single head. Three of the principal insurance companies in London undertook the risk, on the faith of the apparent health, strength, and robust constitution of the prince. He was of gigantic stature, strongly muscular, and seem- ingly imbued with extraordinary vitality up to this period of his life ; but he had no sooner taken out his policy when he laid him- self down on a bed of sickness, and after a lingering illness expired on the 11th of February, 1825. His estates fell to Duke Ernest I. of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the father of the late Prince Consort, who also was left heir to the bulk of his personal property, in- cluding the large sum due upon the great policy in the three British insurance companies. One of these companies declared itself ready at once to pay its share ; but the other two offices demurred to the claim, on the ground that the declaration of the medical attendants of Duke Frederick had not been in conformity with the real state of health of his Highness. A great running to and fro of lawyers and medical gentlemen ensued ; the remains of the Duke were repeatedly and minutely examined, and after vast expenditure of eloquence and ink a compromise at last was arrived at, by the terms of which the executors got

the greater part of the sum insured on the life of the last of the house of Saxe-Gotha. The money thus acquired is believed to

have been of essential service in the career of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, enabling hint to reach his elevated position, from which to dispense crowns to the fortunate members of his family. Some may deem it prosaic, and some romantic, that the rise of the illustrious house of Coburg should have had its origin in a London insurance office.

It is scarcely necessary to say that, with the exception of one or two countries, such as Great Britain or Russia, the possession of wealth is a very important consideration in the formation of family alliances. The importance of wealth naturally increases with the spread of constitutional forms of government, since, in this case, there is no national exchequer to fall back upon; but the purse-strings of States are watchfully kept by representa- tives of the taxpaying multitude. To most constitutional rulers

of the present day the possession of a private fortune has become an absolute necessity, since the official income, the "civil list," is seldom, if ever, large enough to enable them to keep their real or ideal position, besides allowing them to gratify the numerous claims of liberality and benevolence which arise unceasingly. Most princes know, too, that it its a bad policy to walk the streets with a cotton umbrella and hobnailed boots, like the late King Louis Philippe ; or to drive hard bargains in herrings and cheese, after the manner of Dutch William I. A royal marriage itself is a very expensive thing, and has mostly to be provided for out of family funds, there being but one British Parliament in the world, ready and willing to treat any little bills arising out of them as extras of the civil list. The nuptials of the Prince of Wales last year, though nothing out of the way in splendour or magnificence, cost exactly 23,4551., which the House of Commons granted with only one dissentient vote, but which the most loyal of Continental chambers would certainly de- cline to contribute as absolutely beyond their power. More- over, the clear annual income, or salary, of half the sovereigns of Europe does not amount to 23,4551., and supposing this to be the usual expenses of a royal marriage, and there being no private fortune in the background, the members of all these families would be reduced to morganatic alliances. Fortunately for royal ladies, there are a number of reigning houses in Europe possessing immense wealth, and this is getting gradually dis- tributed by a number of well-contrived family connections throughout the whole royal class. It almost seems as if, together with the political, a financial Balance of Power is in course of being established in the great confederacy of sovereigns of the civilized world. Up to the commencement of the present century the richest sovereign family of Europe, excluding Russia, was the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine. They possessed, and still possess, enormous estates within the Austrian empire as private property, which, though mismanaged in moat instances, produce above a million sterling per annum. Vastly superior to this property, though it cannot be called private in every respect, is that of the reigning family of Russia. According to Baron von Haxthausen, more than a million square miles of cultivated land and forests, besides some two million square miles of uncultivated land, mountains, and steppes, partly in European and partly in Asiatic Russia, belong directly to the emperor, and are under his absolute control. The real revenue derived from these gigantic possessions is unknown ; but it is generally estimated that the ex- penditure of the Russian Court, including the allow ance paid to the numerous granddukes and duchesses, cannot be less than about three millions sterling a year. The rate of expenditure of the imperial family may be estimated from the recorded fact that when the late Empress Dowager, the widow of Nicholas, went to Italy, in the summer of 1860, her suite comprised above two hundred persons, with an adequate number of horses and carriages, the cost.of Inaintenance of which was calculated at the period, by German newspaper correspondents, at £3,000 per diem. The coronation of Alexander II. at Moscow, in September, 1856, is estimated, on like authority, to have cost above eight millions of roubles, or some £1,300,000. These t normous fortunes of the imperial family of Russia, as well as of the house of Hapsburg, are getting gradually distributed through blood alliances. Many of the smaller German families, for example, have greatly enriched themselves by their matrimonial connection with the reigning house of Russia. Czarina Catherine II., a princess of the house of Anhalt, made a present of most valuable domains in southern Russia, comprising an area of about 230 square miles, tp her kinsfolk at home, the income of which they enjoy to the present day. It is this lavish liberality which has not a little contributed to the eagerness with which Russian alliances are sought after in Germany, and the consequent influence they exercise.

Leaving aside the wealth of the imperial house of Holstein- Gottorp, which can scarcely be called private property, the richest sovereign family in Europe is commonly believed to be that of Austria, and next to it the house of Nassau-Orange, ruling the Netherlands. The riches of the latter family have been acquired almost entirely within the last few generations. When William VI. of Nassau-Orange was called, in 1815, to the throne of the Netherlands, which he filled afterwards as William I., he wadpossessed of but a modest private fortune, which he increased enoimously by investing it in commercial undertakings patronized by the Government. As leading partner in the colonial " Maatschappy," a sort of Dutch East India Company, he was able to. employ most profitably both his cash and his royal prerogative, with the net result of leaping to his heirs a private fortune of 150 millions of florins, or twelve and a half millions sterling. The successors of King William I. continued his trading speculations, though not to the same extent, and are still considered leading personages on the Amsterdam Exchange. It is very probable that this commercially acquired wealth has greatly contributed to fortify the Nassau-Orange dynasty, in a

country where riches are worshipped to this day more than in any other part of Europe. Many German sovereigns have traded for the last half-century in exactly the same manner as the first King of the Netherlands, with results equally fortunate in com- parison. Some reigning princes to this day are stock-jobbers, some cattle-dealers, some farmers, and some mining adventurers. The shrewdest of them all, the late autocrat of the principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, hit upon quite an original idea for making money. He set up a large brewery and distillery, and forbad his subjects, under heavy penalties, to consume any other ale or spirits than those issued from the princely establish- ment. Of course, he drove a " roaring trade," notwithstanding the fact that his beer and " brannwein" were much dearer and much worse than like articles furnished by plebeian brewers and distillers to the subjects of neighbouring potentates. Prince Gunther of Schwarzburg.Sondershausen in this manner earned some twenty million thalera, which he invested in the purchase of large estates in Bohemia and the grand duchies of Mecklenburg. But the more money he made the more greedy he got, and at last his beer and gin became so dear and so bad that his faithful subjects could not stand it any longer. Consequently, on one fine morning in August, 1835, one-half of the sixty thousand inhabitants of the principality assembled in front of the Schloss of their master, and burst out shouting for ale and liberty. The poor prince misunderstood their cries, and feeling the re- morse of actions not spirit-proof, he fled in great haste, leaving behind his deed of abdication. His son and successor did not think it safe to continue the brewing and distilling business, and he set up, therefore, as papermaker and wholesale dealer in chiffons, making it penal to buy paper and sell rags elsewhere than at the princely factory. Many a fortune has been made in this way, in modern times, in the fatherland of princes. The movement which thus changes poor sovereigns into active traders and adventurers, to convert them finally into wealthy capital- ists, is not without its political importance. The great royal family of Europe, taken as a class, might, perhaps, be in danger of losing part of its prestige, at the side of a rising and all- powerful money-aristocracy, were it not carried fora and by the same tide of success. It is evidently a widespread feeling of modern royalty that in our days it will not do even for kings to be poor. A Kaiser in the fifteenth century might boast of pos- sessing naught for personal property but his coat of mail and his Damascene sword ; but a Kaiser in the nineteenth, were he so to boast, would be laughed at by the grandchildren of a cunning little Israelite, who commenced life by keeping a small shop under the sign of the Red Shield—in German, Rothschild— in the Jew lane at Frankfort, and ended by curbing half the States of the civilized world under his golden rod. A character- istic little anecdote, showing the views on this subject entertained by modern princes, is told of the present Emperor of Austria. Soon after his marriage, Francis Joseph was pressed by his con- sort to allow himself to be solemnly proclaimed King of Lom- bardy, by placing the iron crown of Charlemagne on his head. Whereupon the young Kaiser replied, smiling, " Iron crowns are no good now-a-days ; none but golden crowns will do, my dear."

Taking a bird's eye view of the royal families of Europe, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, they may be considered as forming a single group, with some parts more or less de- tached from the rest, but united by a common class feeling, and the consciousness of being not only the most powerful and most dignified, but by far the wealthiest order of men in the civilized world. Altogether, the position of royalty in Europe is not very unlike that of the peerage of Great Britain, the chief difference being that a close family connection exists only among certain limited sections of the latter class, and is general in the former. This family connection, however, is de- cidedly the most remarkable feature of modern royalty, and one which distinguishes it from any other class or caste that ever existed. It may be laid down as a principle established upon evidence that at present there can exist no hereditary sovereign house in Europe without blood alliances, either formed at the commencement, or at the end of a few generations, with the great family of sovereigns. The principle was clearly acknow- ledged by Napoleon 1., who, with all his inborn sagacity and all his undisguised hatred of petty princedom, did not think himself able to found a dynasty without marriage with a Kaiser's daugh- ter. And should the first or second generation of a new sovereign house fail to obtain entrance into the great family, the third and fourth are sure to be drawn within the sacred circle. The first king of the new line of Sweden and Norway, Jean

Bernadotte, had he required a consort, would probably not have succeeded to find a princess of royal blood ; and even his son and successor, King Oscar, had to content himself with a semi-royal princess of Leuchtenberg. But the present, the third king, has finally and unmistakeably entered the great sovereign family, as proved by his own marriage and that of his brother, the heir- apparent. A similar fate will probably attend the career of the new imperial dynasty of France, should Napoleon III. succeed in establishing it upon a firm basis. His Majesty himself, it is generally stated, tried in vain to obtain the hand of a princess, though he would have been content to espouse the daughter of General Gustavus Vasa, the throne of whose ancestors is now- occupied by a parvenu family of the first empire. There will be scarcely the same difficulty in the second generation of the new imperial line; nevertheless, it is rumoured that, to prevent any possible disappointments, Napoleon III. is already contemplating the possibility of an alliance for his only son, not yet eight years old. A semi-official Austrian paper, l'Europe, of Frankfort, reported some months ago that serious negotiations to this effect had been entered into between the Court of the Tuileries and a sovereign family in the south of Germany, designated as nearly allied to the house of Hapsburg, If this be true, and it does not seem at all unlikely, it would add to all the Napoleonic " ideas " which the nineteenth century has ripened, the very old idea of betroth- ing children as an entail upon dynastic rights.

The great characteristic of the royal class of Europe, that of intimate blood alliances of all its members, loses nothing from its force by the fact that one hereditary sovereign, of Turkey, is totally unconnected with it, and a second, of France, can claim but indirect relationship to the rest. The Sultan of Turkey, leaving aside polygamy and the Mahometan creed, can scarcely be counted a European sovereign, since his family is of Asiatic descent, and the chief bulk of his subjects look upon Asia more than Europe as the home of their race. As to the ruler of France, he stands in reality already within the royal family circle, although his "morganatic " union—a sudden act, according to all accounts, and the fruit of matrimonial disappointments in another quarter—places him for the moment in about the same position as that held by the new Kings of Sweden of the house of Bernadotte. It is a misfortune which another generation will remedy—if fate has royal generations in store for the Bonapartes as well as the Bernadottes. Already at this moment the family alliances of the Emperor of the French are not inconsiderable. Through his cousin, Prince Napoleon, his Majesty is connected directly with the Kings of Italy and of Portugal, and indirectly with the great Roman Catholic group of sovereigns. On the other hand, through the marriage of his late uncle, the ex-King of Westphalia, the Emperor is allied to the royal family of Wiirtemberg and the Imperial House of Russia ; and the relationship with the latter, as already mentioned, becomes still stronger through the Russian incorporation of the Leuchtenberg family, so near and dear to Queen Hortense. • If not an actual " brother," as styled in his Congress correspondence, the Emperor of the French certainly has the right to call himself a true cousin—true not being taken in the sense of faithful.

Summing up the actual position of the hereditary sovereigns of Europe in a few words, it may be given as a net result that all the families form but one great family, and that this great family is German. The second part of the fact springs out of the first. The sovereign houses of Europe, having once begun to enter into thorough blood alliances, were forced to become German by the law of majorities. For the last two or three centuries the nume- rical strength of German princes, compared with that of reigning sovereigns of other European States, has been as five to one, and this numerical force being in many cases on the increase, through the absence of laws of primogeniture, which exist in other countries, could not help leading to the matrimonial conquest of the thrones of the civilized world. Even at the present moment, after that tremendous slaughter of the innocents effected in the " mediatization " of fiveacore princes at the Congress of Vienna, German sovereigns still are as three to one to the other crowned heads of Europe. The total number of European sovereigns— excluding the non-hereditary Pope and the semi-Asiatic Sultan —amounted, on the first of January of the present year, to exactly thirty-nine. Of this number, no less than thirty are of direct German origin, that is, born and bred in Germany, while, of the remaining nine, there are four of German descent. The only five non-German sovereigns of Europe, the rulers of France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, are more or less closely related to German families, and, on this account, must needs become absorbed with them through a system of blood alliances which has gradually grown up in Europe, until it has become a custom having the force of law. As such, it is well de- serving the attention of all statesmen and historical philosophers. The system has its great advantages, and it has some dangers ; but, admitting monarchical institutions to be beat suited to the free development of nations, it would seem that the former far out- weigh the latter. The great sovereign family of Europe, with all its power, its wealth, and influence, is scarcely powerful, and rich, and influential enough to oppose the spread of national liberty, while it may contribute, to some extent, to the progress of international relations. However, whether for good or for evil, the blood alliances of all the sovereign families, essentially a phenomenon of modern times, can scarcely remain without influence on the history of Europe.

The following is a tabular list of the thirty-nine reigning sovereigns of Europe, divided into the three sections mentioned above, namely, those of purely German birth and education, those of German descent, and those not German, but more or less allied to German families. The last, as the least numerous, deserves precedence.

EON-GERMAN SOVEREIGNS.

France. I Portugal.

Italy. Spain. Sweden and Norway.

SOVEREIGNS OF GERMAN DESCENT.

Portugal. Netherlands. Russia. Great Britain.

SOVEREIGNS BORN AND EDUCATED IN GERMANY.

Anhalt. Austria. Baden. Bavaria. Belgium. Brunswick.

Denmark. Greece. Hanover. Hesse-Cassel.

„ Darmstadt.

„ Homburg. Lichtenstein. Lippe-Detmold. Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Nassau.

Oldenburg.

Reuss-Greiz. „ Schleiz.

Saxe-Altenburg.

„ Coburg-Gotha.

„ Meiningen.

„ Weimar.

Saxony.

Schaumburg-Lippe. Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt.

11 Sondershausen. Waldeck.

Wiirtemberg.

It is a not uninteresting fact 'n connection with this list, that, while the actual number of reign ng European sovereigns has de- creased by six within as many years, five of these sovereigns, of Modena, Monaco, Naples, Parma, and Tuscany, belonged to the first of the above three classes. So that even the Italian war of independence has contributed to the comparative increase of pure Teutonic blood among the sovereign families of Europe.