The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-21
THE "ALMANACH DE GOTHA.~


year OF which we welcome the appearance on
our library table with more of calm satisfaction
than our old friend, at once polite and instruc-
tive, the ALnldndcb de GOthd. There is in its
pages combination of gentility with useful
knowledge such as we meet with in the converse
Of well-informed foreign nobeman of
iTreproachable pedigree. If the Peerage is
justly denominated the British snobs Bible, the
Atn1dndch de Gotbd may pass as the manual of
devotion for the continental variety of the same
species. 1t lies before US now, in its clean and
sober covering, saluting the year 1869 with its
accustomed "AVis aux amateurs ct protecteurs
de rAimanach de Gotha;" printed with the
utmost economy of space, yet swollen, as its
editors inform us, from less than 800 pages
in 1916 to nearly HOO by constantly increasing
press of matter. Its frontispiece greets us
with the lovely 'sympatheticn face of Marie,
Grande Duchesse de Russie, the same who inte.
rested us all in this country five years ago by
the charm OF her childish figure and the singu-
larity Of her name, as the Princess Dagmar,
sister of our Princess of Wales, we little guess
| ing then that the light of those gentle eyes was
| to beam in gracious sovereignty on millions of
| ugly Muscoyites, CalmuckS, ana Firms, The
| subdivisions follow in regular order, almanac,
| genealogical tables, and "Annuare Diploma.
| tlqueY but 1t is an omlnous sign of the times
that this last section has by degrees usurped on
| the rest until 1t forms by far the larger part of
| the contents, showing hOW statistics and com.
mercial returns, and details OF the public SER
| wee, have encroaChedin the popular mind on
| the province OF royal and aristoCratic life.
1t is amusing to observe the deXterity with
which the compilers of this universal tavorte
| have adapted it from time to time to the chang
| ing eXigencies of its readers. 1t processes TO
| have attained its hundred and sixth year, But
| the earliest volume which we happen to have
seen ls that Tor 1883: just before the landmarks
| of the old world began to be obliterated by the
| revolutionary deluge. Its moderate bulk was
! then sWelled by sentimental anecdotes, travel
| lers stories, facts in natural history, and the
| like; the pages Of its diary are diversified with
| neat little steel engravings in the manner of
Shodo~icski, representing scenes in the popular
| novel Caroline yon LitChfeld." Eighty pages
| contain the account of about three hundred
| "prcely tamilies:' that is, sovereign or quasi.
! sovereign, tor the Holy Roman Empire as yet
| subsisted III all its grotesquer variety, and its
high feudatories, counts and barons,
bishops abbots, and two or three abbesses
| figure by the side of emperors and kings. The
| statistical part is compiled according to the
| best available knowledge of the time. Europe
| had then about 160,O00000 of inhabitants; our
almanac for 1860 gives it 290,O00,O 900. In
| military force Prussia ranked already next to
Russia and Austria, having the extraordinary
relative number of 100000 soldiers with only
| 5000 900 of people. table of the population
| OF the principal European cities in 1888 shows
that almost all of them, in the busy and COM
merclal parts, have doubled and trebled in
numbers since that time; few in the South
have remained nearly stationary; two only
! Amsterdam and Venice--whose glory is IN the
! past, have actually diminished.
| The almanac for 1869 enumerates the names
and pedigrees OF thrty-elght European soye-
reigns only, the list becoming almost every year
beautifully less" and containing even now
one, that OF the Queen OF Spain, which is re-
! tanned rather In courty spirit than in that of
hard reality. short as it is, the catalogue still
comprehends variety extending from the
gigantic to the infinitely small, from the Gar
OF Russia, with his fifty councillors of state and
army of fifty divisions, down TO IAchtensteln,
and Reuss-Schleiz and Reuss-Grelz, and Monaco
! with his aides-de-camp ana one 'dame du
palais." The monarchs OF this generation do
not seem to be very long lived race. Only
nine are above sixty years old; only five have
| reened thirty years.
The ptincely "nonsovereign" families-in
| early volumes ranked with soVereign-noW form
a class apart. The dignity OF prince, emitting
its owner to the privilege of red nat and
paragraph in the Atm0ndch de GOthd, is now
| rather an anomalous compound of times past
aud present The Prince-Furst, "foremost"-
was once, as we have seen, q sovereign in his
| own domlnlons, saving only his feudal allie
glance 10 the paramount power, the empire.
But after the empire had been quietly dissolved,
! sixty years ago, the right to confer the
| pTincely title was usurDed, with the consent
OF the German Confederation, by soyereigus
| who themselves had previously been feudatoTies
only. The LIST, therefore, as it at present stands
| exhibits a very miscellaneous assemblage, from
Italian aud German families which once COM
| manded States and armies and whose origin is
lost III the night of early time-Oroy, Rohan,
| Furstenberg, Colonna, Orsini-doWn to the latest
| products OF the revolutionary Wars-Murat,
Blucher, Rutio. 1t comprises some French,
Dutch, HUNGARIAN, aud Polish families also.
But those arlstocracies which never had connec-
tion with Germany-those of the northern
countries, Spain, England and the grand old
nobility OF Venlce-turnlsh no contlgent to the
well-born regiment OF the AhndnQoh de qoLhd.
Some forty princely families are classed apart
as as eIodevant sovereign, those of princes
"mediatiZed" after the fail of the German
empire, to which the title of Serene Highness-
DlTchtdught, more properly "transparencyn-