The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-09-21
ROYALTY AND INSANITY.
TENDENCIES THAT LIVING MON.
ARCdS INHERIT.

From the Philadelphia Press.
The uncauny stories lately printed in
some of the French newspapers about the
alleged highly eccentric behavior of the EN-
peror of Germany the recent visit of the
Queen of the Belgians to "poor Carlotta,"
the maniac widow of Maximilian Louis
Napoleon's puppet Emperor of Mexico). and
the tragic history, still fresh in the publ @
mind, Of the suicide of King Ludwig of
Bavaria, all serve to emphasize the fact
that royalties" are to a remarkable degree
tainted in their wits"-are, out of all pro-
portion TO their number, far more suscepti-
BILE to attacks of hereditary insanity than
almost any other class of society.
1t is true that Carlotta was maddened by
the horrible tragedy of her life, but
a study of her royal descent affords abund-
ant evideace that an inherited family neu-
ross predisposed her to an alacrity in yield
ing TO mental strain that might have been
resisted by a person of greater coDgenital
mental force. The luckless ex-empress of
Mexico, since her brave but unfortunate
husband yielded himself a vicarious sacrific9
to the many political schemes of Napoleon
the Little" has been hopeless chronic de-
ment, prey to acute hysteria, subject TO
nations that render her life hateful to her>
self, her existence torment to pitiful at
tendants who dare not for an instant per-
nit her to escape from their anxious care
and keeping.
1t would have been merciful indeed had
some OF the bullets that mangled the body
of Macmillan been reserved to end the sad
career of poor Carlotta," who now, in
palace of her native land, raves and weeps
her aXiafauOa in roAFNflaGQ nrnlOnna-
ton of the terror and agony of the days
when her husband awaited the fulfillment
of the death sentence passed upon him by
country outraged by the invasion of
foreign soldiery, which sought to establish
an empire In tile New World-a sinluIG-
cr1tm of that empire SOON to be utterly over
thrown at Sedan.
MONARCBIAL MADNESS.
Startling as the statement may appear
few, il any, of the royal families of Europe
have esca ped neurotic faint. Nearly every
generation of European kings and queens,
emperors and expresses, has been afflicted
with some form of insanity. Many have in
herited their mental disorders from mad
ancestors; others have become demented as
result Of royal self-indulgence and unre-
strained dissipation; others by giving full
play TO the debasing effects of the 'luxury
of power" of the uncontrolled greed for
dominion. Some, a few like Carlotta, have
been driven mad by the tragedy of certain
episodes of their lives.
1t is no exaggeration to say that monar-
chiai governments have been during inter-
mittent periods covering more than one
half of their histories, under the direct
sway of insane monarchs-rulers who, by
reason OF their conspicuous undeniable in-
sanity, have permitted their soepters to fall
from nerveless hands into the control of re-
gents and protectors, who have not hest
tated to assume the reigns of government,
pretending to act in the name and by the
alleged delegated power of a demented
creature carefully kept secluded from public
view-kings in nothing but the name.
OF ordinary average men, but one in 500
is adjudged insane by modern statisticians ::
OF kings and queens, emperors and en-
presses, electors and imperial and serene
highuesses, it is within bounds to say that
at least one-third. say thirty out of every
100, have been imbecile, idiotic, demented
or maniacal-in a word, insane
Consider, but for q moment, the history
of the Roman emperors, of the ozars OF
Russia, of the kings Of Spain. the German
emperors, the kings of Denmark.
Remember that from julius Caesar down.
the Julian race was a succession of epilep-
tics. Recently, we know, it has been de-
nied that the "Great Jalius" was subject to
epileptic fits. But that two out of three of
his successors were mad, who after reading
the books of William w. Ireland, NJ. d.. Of
Edinburgh, and Others can deny A few
words as to the mental condition of these
CAESARS before we pass TO the history of
more modern dynasties. When we study,
in Gibbon, the stories of the earliest Roman
emperors, we are struck by the undeniable
truth that one of the most indisputable
facts concerning them is that the primo
at - lrns,- e
stricted power was TO entice them into such
uncontrolled and uncomfortable indulgence
i'll sensual pleas ares that they almost With
out exception, bee Jme the victims of i'm
moderate physical debauchery and mind
destroying passions. Almost invariably
they seemed to have lived this Julian raceJ,
until excuses wore out their lives, or until
a debauched and brutalized Roman people
rid themselves of the ruling monster by
furious revolt.
In the history of Russia we find many
startling instances OF both. From time I'M
memorial, for fifty.two generations of Mus
covite kings, we ore Mortified by the inhu-
man, develish cruelty of the Varangian
dyrasty-a race which came to an end in
1898, when Feodor, the eldest son of Ivan
the Terrible, youth who had inherited the
family epilepsy, was found in the court
yard Of his palace with cut in his throat
said by some to have been self-adminisiered
during the commissions which revealed him
as victim Of inherited neurosis.
That Feodor came honestly by his mad.
ness, is abundantly proven by the history of
his fathers life and reign. In reply to a
letter Of Ivan the Terrible" Stephen Bat
tori, king Of Poland, gives us a candid and
correct opinion of the Russian emperors
mental state. He says The letters which
you Qyal) send us are very long, full of
scurrility and impudencs and quite desti-
tute OF order and arrangement. You have
written everything in a confused and IN
formed ma lner, from which the persurba-
ton Of your mind is easily seen. A correct
estimate of VANS poor ability as a letter
writer, doubtless, but not alphabetically or
very politely expressed.
Aud the Romanloffs who succeeded in
1913 to the Russian crown: what is to be
said of theml Alexis, the first Of that
dynasty, was "an able boy''-but bis BON
Feodor III, was weak-minded. The brother
of Feodor II, who succeeded him, was an
epileptic imbecile-goverued for a time by
his sister Sophia strong-willed woman,
who made way for her irrepressible half
brother, "Peter the Great" Peter the Great
had commissions aRd displayed other evil
dences of epilepsy. He, it will be remem-
bered, murdered his own son, Alexis, and
was succeeded by his wife, who was fol-
lowed by her grandson Peter, the SOD Of the
murdered Alexis.
Peter ii an undoubted lupetic (epilepticl,
died young and was succeeded by Anna,
the Great. But why rehearse the pitiful
story OF a race of mad meme Down to Alex
ander l, who walked to be crowned, "pre-
hu tho osers Of hia GRAND fath