The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1871-10-05
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French Royalty.

French Royalty.
Uneasy lies the head that wears
the crown" is the sentiment put into
the mouth of Henry ", proud Bo-
lingbrokc, who in his own career as
usurper, and in the murder of his
predecessor, helped to point the NOR
al. The accent deposition of Napo-
leon III, and the vicissitudes OF his
career, call to mind some historical
rccollections, which, if not instruc-
tive, in this age ofrepublicanism, are
at least interesting. French history
is specially replcte with the mistor-
tunes of royalty.
Louis Philippe, the royal predeces-
sor of Louis Napoleon, began by
fleeing for his life from the republi-
cans OFFS and ended by fleeing be-
fore The republicans Of AS. His ear
" experience taught him to put no
faith in the tender mcrcies Of an cX-
cited people, whose enthusiasm
might easily run into fanaticism.
Charles \, a true Bourbon Of the
direct line, who had learned no good
nor forgotten any evil in the exile
and adversely ofhis race, 0,rlonnanceS
against the press and thc advice of
ihc Polignaccs brough the rcvolu-
ton of 1920 and the three days Of
July upon Paris, and Charles y was
again al exile.
Napoleon, the man of destiny aud
tuvoritc of fu~tunc could only be hur-
led from his pride of place by the
combined pow n Of all the kings.
lie abdcatcd once, broke faith, was
again dcposcl, and ended his career
at st. IIelena---Promcthous bound to
the rock, dcvourch by ccaselcss re-
grets and memories.
Louis XVI pcrisied by the guillo-
tine. A helpless, harmless man, up
on whose unhappy head the sins of
his ancestors were visited,
Louis XVI, baby king, q mere
lcgitimist phantom Of royalty, died
in the temple from privation and
neglect.
Louis XIV lc Desire o minister of
prohigancy the friend of Pompadour
and Dubarry, the proprietor lie Pare
aux Curtis, died king, and in his
bed, but with none to close his eyes,
for every attendant was away from
the dying couch, either on pleasure
or to pay court to the rising sun.
Henry ", the great King, the
Frcnchman's royal ideal, lived n
youth Of courteous captivity, and af-
ter manhood Of war attained his
crown by adjuring his religion, and
died by the knife of Ravaillac in
1910.
Charles IX, the abcttor Of st. Bar
tholomew's Day massacre, died Of
disease of body and mind, brought
on by remorse for the horried crime.
Henry III, profligatc and unpri-
ciplcd ruler, was assassinated by
Jacques Clement, Dominican monk,
in 1889, and masses were offered in
church for the assassin.
Henry ii, q brave and noble prince,
to whom was owing the annexation
of Metz, Verdun, and Toul, with the
adjoining country, as the price of his
alliance with Brandcnburg (now
Prussia) against Charles V and Aus
tria, was killed by the stroke Of a
lance in the eye, in 1853.
Francis l., the last Of the kings Of
chivalry, fell before the astutc policy
and vast power of Charles V, against
whose combinations of Spanish in
fantry and German Lanzknecht, with
French generalship, the brilliant
victors of Marignan were pOwerless.
lie was taken prisoner at Pavia, and
confined at Madrid until conditions
of peace were forced upon him so
humiliating, that he refused to be
bound by his own compact, and a
terrible war of extirminatiOn was
waged, both countries wasting
France with fire and sword until
they laid down their arms from
sheer exhaustion.
Charles VII, during whose reign
Joan of Arc rescued France from the
English, closed not inglorious reign
by falling into a melancholy and
starving himself to death.
Charles vi, during whose reign the
desperate civil war of the Armagnacs
and Burgundians ragged, became in
sane, and was virtually prisoner in
the hands ofeither faction.
John. the prisoner of the Black
Prince at the battle of Poiticrs, 1856,
and taken away to England, was not
liberated for many years. These
wars ofdynasty led to frightful suf-
fcring in the people, amid which
Charles the Dauphin, aftcrward king,
wandered up and down the country a
homeless adventurer.
Louis TX, or st. Louis, famous for
his piciy and crusades against the
Moslcm, was made prisoner by the
Egyptians. The same king, persist
ing in his conversion of the MoOrs,
was carried of byplague at Tunis.
Charles the fat, Louis ", and
other Louis, the dcbonnairc kings of
that age, were alternately captivcs
and cOnquerrers. In those outrage
Gus days of fraud and violence, when
every evil passion ragged with impu-
nifty, the imprisonment or murder
even of kings was small matter,
and it is scarcely worth while to en-
umeratc the inglorious vicissitude of
such succession Of weak tyrants and
brutal marrauders.