The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-08-05 00:00:00

TUE YOUNG DUKE OF BOURDEAUX.

We learn from a Pans corrrespondent (says an Evening
Paper) some very curious particulars illustrative of the
dawning character of the probable future inheritor of the
French Crown—the young Duke of Bourdeaux. To use
' what may be denominated the slang of the French Court
language, the child already possesses a noble
.flert,:, and
is fully embued with an idea of his own immense cense-
quence. It would be illiberal to impute to the instructors
of this royal scion exclusively the employment of a system
of education which never made an able Monarch since'
the world began, because it is to be feared that the French
people themselves do much to snake either mere fa/scans
or overbearing debauchers and puppies of their Princes.
The introduction of them, while quite infants, into all
sons of pageantry, coupled even with the farce of formal
addresses on the part of grave citizens and learned bodies,
must neet:Aarily make them either weak pliable instru-
ments in priestly or other hands, like the infant Lamas
of Tartary ; or, if of a more lively temperament, trans-
form the exuberance of youthful animal spirit into in- I
solenee and encroachment. Our Correspondent informs us I
that this princely hope of France, or rati...sr of the f
House of Bourbon, is already insupportably haughty,
and acts the future Louis XIX. with ludicrous gravity.
The genuine spring of youthful mind is, in fact, utterly
impeded by a routine of the most imposing etiquette,
the chief tendency of which, however, is to impose upon
the poor hoy himself, who is thus formally misled into
a false estimate of himself and every thing around
As he proceeds from one apartment to another, it seems
that he is preceded and followed by two armed pages or
attendants, who loudly exclaim as the door opens, " Mon-
seigneur le Due de Bounleaux," which announcement is
re-echoed from room to room as the child passes, who
assumes the measured step and solemn demeanour of a Mo-
narch of Brentford, as he thus makes his way to the apart-
ments of his mother. A finer recipe for making " a king
of shreds and patches"—a solemn nothing, all canopy and
elbow chair—can scarcely be imagined ; and, what is
worse, the creation of a mere empty and inflatedpageant
forms the beat part of the result ; for if, as before ob-
served, he is constitutionally too mercurial for the fore-
going consummation, the next probability is that he
will sink into a mere wallowing sensualist, like Louis
the fifteenth, or a headstrong impoverisher of his
people by selfish ambition and unnecessary war. In
fact, some shade or other of these various charac-
teristics seems to belong to the occupiers of the French
throne from time immemorial. The melancholy au-
tomatons, like Louis XIII. and XVI.; the man of in-
supportable pomp, pageantry, and ambition, like
Louis XIV.: and the incurah!e rakes and sensualists re-
sembling the Regent and Louis XV. ; such appear
to be the varieties; end a peep into the intermediate pro-
' dnetions, which, in long reigns, died Dauphins and Royal
Dukes, only seems to conenn the observation. It might
be imagined that, under a new Constitution, and in con-
formity with the clearer ideas of the times, a Duke of
Bourtleaux, at the present moment, would be taken out of
this routine, and educated more on the Fenelon plan ; i.ut,
in the usual spirit of restorations, see should not wonder if
a double course of etiquette and Queen Bee royal mental
feeding was resolved upon ; and who can complain if the
process produce Fertlinantls of Spain, Migucls of Portugal,
or Sovereigns like most of those to whom we have
alluded ?