The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-07-01
INTERESTING DYNASTIES.
characteristics of tho Various Houses Of
Royalty.

Characteristics of the Various Houses Of
Royalty.
The idea, not only of the public, but Of
psychologists and historians also, is that a
man derives more from his mother than
by the history of European dynas-
ties. The sovereigns inherit thrones
from their fathers only, or.
in a case like that of King AL
phonso XII. or our own prince of Wales,
from a mother who is h%eiress, and there
fore represents, not a foreign family as a
queen consort does. but the reigning house
itself. Yet every dynasty has presented
certain marked and fixed tendencies. OK
tending, like the Hapsburg underlip, even
to physical peculiarities.
The Bourbons, who inherit from men
only. have always been very royal, able to
reign if not to rule, with certain largeness
OF view visible even in the unhappy Louis
XVI. and an invincible obstinacy, which
has illustrated or discredited them accord
ing to its object. They have been different
men, but nobody mistakes the Bour-
bon face, and We cannot recall one
of the house who has lacked the special
Bourbon qualification, which we can best
define as regality. The Hapsburgs have
been much more alike and have all e1hib-
tied a certain Jovian serenity an OF men
above the accidents of fortune as we'll as
most of the obligations of life. They be-
lieve in themselves to a strange degree. and
on the morrow after a defeat or on a day OF
victory equally feel and behave as rightful
emperors. Dignity, as we suppose 1t might
be called, is their special characteristic
combined with a hurry to act which comes
out throughout their history, and is proba-
bly, an Inheritance from the visionary Max
imilian las strenuousness has been that
OF the Hohenzollerns, who for the rest have
l- L.scA l-N --A
unexpected landowners. One always
thinks of them as a great race of squires,
which is what they have personally looked,
though Frederick the Great rose higher,
and would have been taken for a parsonage
in any society in the world.
The British rsiRning family, which has
never ceased to be German in appearances,
has always exhibited in different ways a
character OF strong ordinarineaa, which the
English people have understood rs the Han
overiuns did, and, on the whole, with most
curious little outbreaks of popular con-
tempt, have agreed to approve. 1t lisa char
ncter which rises at crises and somehow inn
presses those about them, probably from =
conviction, al avs grateful to Englishmen.
that they will never do anything wholly IN
expected. What the English would do
with Il really original monarch it is impos-
both houses, PRAYING him never to speak
in public, except through responsible min
lister,
The house of Bonaparte has cbaracteris-
tics as marked as those of any older fami-
lies whose habit of raining has been less
spasmodic. It's membets hive all shown
ability, have all been ambitious of thrones
Ito be kings is the role of Eonapartes rs to
be admirals and generals is OF SO many
naval and military families-and have all
shown an incapacitv to feel tho pressure of
obligations, whether religious or social or
moral. They have not beer gentlemen, not
because they have any liki4lg for common
ways, but because to be- refined il to submit
to an immense number of rulos and obliga-
tions which oppressed them mach IS clothes
oppress a Maori. They have been at heart
like the ancient Caesars. solqti a legibus.
unbound by laws-a position which, by the
way, the great Bonaparte used To claim for
himself, when talking with hip iDtimates. in
60 many words.--st. Louis Post-Dispatch.