The Sun.
London, England, 1837-01-28 00:00:00

THE BOURBON FAMILY.

Since the demise of Charles X. much uncertainty has pre-
vailed among the Royalists of France as to,the intentions of
his son the Dauphin, nr Duke d'Angouleine. Whether his
Royal Highness adhered to the Rambouillet abdication, al-
though the conditions upon which it was subscribed have not
been fulfilled ; whether he resumed his right to the throne, or
consented to the Duke de Bourdeaux being acknowledged as
King Henry V. by the friends of his house, has excited the
solicitude of a numerous party, who, under the denomina-
tion of " Legitimates," include a large proportion of the
wealthiest inhabitants of France, and her oldest families,
and who, as regards honourable feeling and poliCeel con-
sistency, are far more respectable than any other existing
in that country. Their scruples have just been _re-
moved. Within the last few days an authentic decla-
ration of the Dauphin's intentions has reached Paris. It '
is surprising that it should not have been received there
earlier, for it is dated the Bth of November, three days only
,after the death of Charles X. We have not the document
before us, but its substance -is pretty nearly as follows :
As long as the late King lived his son abstained from ex-
pressing his opinion upon a political situation, the direction
of Which belonged to his Majesty alone ; but since it has
pleased Divine Providence to remove him from this world,
the Dauphin deems it his duty to declare that his intention
is, that the Rambouillet abdication be construed in favour
of the Duke de Bourdeaux. Nevertheless, in t'.c painful
circumstances of the Royal Family, the Dauphin further
declares that ite razume., the title of King, but solely to re-
tain over the children of his late beether, the 'juke de
Berry, an authority which it is necessary that a person of
experience should be invested with. His Royal Highness
mists that he will make every effort towards the re-esta-
blishment of the lawful authority in Prance t that as soon
as it shall please Divine Providence to restore the legitimate
branch to the throne it is the Duke de Bordeaux who shall
be acknowledged as King, by the name of henry V. ; that
lie (the Dauphin), content with having fulfilled his task,
shall cease to exercise an authority which his nephew will
henceforth be able to exercise for the glory of his country
and the welfare of his subjects.
As we have already observed, we have not the document
before us, but copies of it circulate in the higher circles of
the French capital ; and we could name the illustrious per-
sonage into whose bands the Dauphin has delivered the
original declaration. We may ad J that the despatch which
enclosed it was accompanied with a letter from the Duke de
Bluts, a circumstance the more remarkable as that Noble-
man was believed to he opposed to such a step, and even
stated to have advised the Dauphin formally to revoke the
Rambouillet abdication, on the ground of its having been
made with the stipulation that Henry V. should be imme-
diately proclaimed by the Lieutenant-General of the King-
dom, the Duke d'Orleans. Though the document circulates
at Paris, the Journals of that capital venture not to publish
it. The laws lately enacted against the Press do not allow
the most authentic facts to be published, when they may
remind the public of the claims of the banished family.
Thus, should any newspaper venture the insertion of the
document, even with a censure of it, it would be liable to
a prosecution for attacking the rights which Louis Philip is
fictitiously declared by law to derive from the election of
the French nation.
These details may be deemed very unimportant just now,
that the elder branch of the Bourbons are writhing under
the increasing rieeurs of unmerited adversity ; but should
one of those catastrophe; so frequent in the annals of France
shake the insecure throne of the Duke d'Orleans, and
threaten the country with another convulsion, we may be-
hold a strong manifestation in favour of the return of Henry
V. The Duke d'Angouleme would not, perhaps, under
such circumstances, excite the same hopes and wishes, and
the partisans of his illustrious house must, we should think,
consider that he has acted wisely, both in his interest and
that of his youthful nephew, in resigning his own rights to
the throne of France,
We shall conclude this article with the transcript of a
letter written by the young Duke de Bordeaux to one of
the most eminent members of the Royalist party. We have
every reason to believe that the lines were spontaneously
written by the young Prince, without the assistance of any
person :—" M—, you will say in France that my thoughts
are ever turned towards the glory and happiness of my coun-
try ; that neither time nor absence can ever diminish the
lively interest that I take therein ; and that my compatriots
may always depend upon my constancy and affection. It is
a heritage which the King, my grandfather, whose loss I so
deeply deplore, has left me with the souvenir of all his vir-
tues. It is a feeling which I find also warms the breast of
the King my uncle, and of my august aunt. I should then
be a stranger to ray own family if I did not participate in
it. Whom can I ask better than you, dear Sir, to impart
my feelings to our faithful friends ? Assure them, .assure
every Frenchman, that if it should please God to restore me
to my country. I shall know in what way to prove to them
that my only ambition is to render them as dear as those
Princes of my race whose memory they preserve with so
much love and pride, happy in being strengthened in this
desire by the virtues which present themselves to my eyes,
and by the noble example set me by the King my uncle.
" Goritz, Nov. 15, 1836, " HENRI"

NAPOLEON'S CHARACTEit.—Napolcon's habits
held out a powerful attraction for the mind of a poet, Re-
mote, stern, and solitary, lie suffered nothing of his gran-
deur to be diminished by the common-place intercourse of
mankind. Hidden from public view in a circle of states-
men and soldiers of high fame, be was almost wholly invisible
to the popular eye, except on some great and chosen occa-
sion, when he emerged from this living cloud, prepared to
dazzle and perplex all minor curiosity by his full splendours.
His private life was shrouded in mystery, His public life
consisted of those overwhelming bursts and profound ob-
scurations which heightened each other's effect, and lie
bewildered the general mind. One great purpose of his
conduct was evidently to make the feeling universal that he
was not a man like other men—that he was gifted with other
and loftier faculties and made to accomplish bolder and
more extended designs—that he was less a statesman than
a governing mind—less a general than a genius of war.
less a man than a destiny. His idea of a Napoleon " star,"
even if it originated in charlatanism, rosy have grown upon
such a mind, and shaped such a destiny. Thor° is no sti-
mulant of human powers so vivid as the belief that some
high achievement is yet to be wrought by those powers.
The mind which thinks itself made only to creep on the
ground, will never start upon its feet. All men of capacious
intellects instinctively love to think that those intellects are
given for more than the common career of life. They de-
light to believe themselves urged on by some resistless hand
to the labours and triumphs of greatness ; to rank them-
selves, in some sense, with those high agencies which, invi-
sible in their nature, palpably mould and urge the course of
human things ; to have some associate nature and kindred
impulse with those resistless beings who " ride on the whirl-
wind and direct the storm." Napoleon's mind was less
European than Oriental. His singular subtlety, his re-
morseless vindictiveness, his disregard of human life, were
as Oriental as his passion for pomp, his haughty abstraction,
and his rage of absolute power. He always had the va=st-
ness of Oriental conquest before his eye. '['he triumphs of
European war were trivial to him ; his genius of battles was
a colossus, with one foot on Europe and one on Asia ; Ta-
merlane and Genghis Khan, sweeping half the world with
their tempest of cavalry, were his models ; and, at the first
moment in which he found himself at the head..of an inde-
pendent army, in the invasion of Egypt, lie sketched a plan
of conquest, stretching from Africa over Asia Minor on the
one hand, and Hindostan on the other ; his banner was to
concentrate the horsemen of the South and the North ; and
then, with his trumpet sounding at once to the Nubian and
the Tartar chivalry, he was to march his unnumbered co-
lumns on Europe, and unite Paris with Calcutta and Pekin.
—Foreign Quarterly Review.
A DEAR LOBSTER.—The late Duke of Norfolk
was fond of the luxuries of the table, and, although appa-
rently as joyous and blithesome as any one, he could be as
morose and ill-tempered as any person breathing. Those
who knew him could pretty well anticipate when a breeze
was likely to spring up, as an ebullition of temper was al-
ways preceded by a convulsive heaving of his ponderous
shoulders, as exemplified by the following trait :—A select
party, about twelve in number, had assembled in St.
James'-square, and were partaking of a sumptuous dinner,
when on a sudden the Earl-Marshal's shoulders began to
undulate, and the following_ short colioquy between a then
favoured servant and his Grace took place. " I do not
see a lobster on the table, Dobson. " No, your Grace."
" I think I ordered one, Sir " roared the Duke. " Yes,
replied Dobson, " you did; your Grace, and I bid as far as
41. 16s. for one ; but there being but one in the market,
I could not get it ; the same lobster being divided between
the Lords Anglcsea and Sefton, who were resolved to have
it !"—Jockey of Norfolk said no more.

Yesterday morning the workmen engaged on the
line of works of the London and Birmingham rail-road
near Primrose-hill, Hampstead, completed the tunnel, which,
about two years since, was commenced near Chalk Farm
Tavern, Camden-Town. The tunnel extends a distance of
1,500 yards. The following is a correct statement of the
dimensions :—Height from the basement to the crown of the
arch 25 feet ; width from side-wall to side-wall 24 feet. The
interior of the tunnel will be thickly lighted with gas.
THE WEATHER .-No sooner do there occur a few
hours' intimation of finer weather, than the rain returns with
fresh violence. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights it
rained in torrents. It is now full five months since there
may be said to have been an uninterrupted continuance of
one week's dry weather.
The rapid improvement in the trade of Glasgow is
evinced by the progressive increase of the Customs' revenue,
which for the year just ended, amounts to 390,0001., while
the previous year produced 315,000/., and the one preced-
ing 270,0001.--Glasgow Paper.