Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1883-07-06
THE LAST OF THE B0rRBONs.

Little could Louis the Grca, Of france
have Imagined that one of his descen.
dants on the throne was 10 di. on
the block and that the las, Of Li, line
was to die an exile 10 an alien lani. Yet
such was to be the mockery Of fate, Henry
Due de Bourjeaux, commonly called Count
Of Chanbord, the last descendant, In tue
main line, of the ilIustrious Henry ", Is
either dead 7r dying In his self-imposcd
exile at Frohsdorf. The career OF the Bcur.
vicisstude. In its time It has ruled
half of Europe, aud its blood flows ia toe
veins of :every.royal house in Chrlstendom.
1t traces its descent from Henry Nv.
through his son, Louis XIII. His son was
Louis XIV. and his grandson Louis the Grand
Dauphin. The Diuphin's sol WA Louis Of
Burgundy, and he is a. the head of the first
or main lnc Of the house of Bourbon. That
Louis was father of Louis Nv, and from
him the royal line dcsccnds through the
Dauphin, the three brothers, Louis XVI +,
Louis XVIII, Charles X, aud the Due de
Berry t. the Count of Chambord. Alfonso
XII. of Spain, Francis IL, the cxilcd king
of Naples, Don CarIs, the Spanish nretcn-
der, and Robert, the cxiled Duke of Parma,
are all the descendants of Philip of Anjou,
the second son of the Grand Dauphin, and
the Count Of Paris, Who succeeds
him of Chambord as tltular king
OF France-a shadowy sovereignty
is u descendant of Philip of Orleans, the sec
ond son of Louis XIII. Thus the Count OF
Paris is n scion of the youngest strain; the
Spanish and Italian Bpurbons of course have
no claim to the French crown; aid the
clldlrss CJuIt of Chamhord is the last rep
resentativc OF the main line.
| But enough of gencalosies. The Count
of Cmmbord's life has been hard one. Iii.
shadowy crown has been as full of llIorns as
If it had been the genuine article, and, rs tc
most MORALS, Death must have come as q
ministoring angel TO lift il from his aching
brow. Ills misforluncs began before his birth
for he was pos!humous son of The Due dc
Berry, who was assassinutcd seven months
before the Count Of Chambord was born
The young Count was sent into exile with
his grandfather, Charles n. in 1880, wher
he was ten years old. Then for twenty five
years he lived successfully in Scotland, Bo
hemia, Illyria, England and Venice, finally
settling down to II permanent residence in
Frohsdori, near Vienna in the castle where
| oil Aar; -,
Ang luleme, daughter of Marie Autoinette,
and the only one OF the royal prisoners who
survived the Revolution. In that stately
castle the Count of Chlnbord for nearly 30
years has kept mock royal court. lie was
addressed us Monsgncur, and his few bu,
devoted adherents paid him aud his
wife all the tribute that royalty
could exact. The whole thing was an ana
chronism of at least three hundred years. Tie
Count of Chambord would have made very
respectable king, as kings went, in the
fifteenth or sixteenth century; but IN the
nineteenth he was ss much out of place as
arc the ideas Of which he was the incarna-
ton. He was, as has been said, slow of
mind, soft of tongue, proud as Caesar, ST.
perstitious as sailor, pious as q medieval
monk, and as incapable of grasping new
ideas or forsaking old ones. as any tortoise.
He was, in short. the ideal tyne of a Rour.
bon. He never forgot anything and he new
or learned anything. He might easily have
been king in fact as well as in name, for he
tEicG lost proGcred crown, once through