The King of Holland, who has for some time past
been mentally incapacitated for reigning, died on Sunday, and
was succeeded by his daughter Wilhelmina, a child of ten, who will, if she survives to a marriageable age, carry on the direct line of Orange-Nassau. It does not lie in the months of Englishmen, whose Kings descend from Cerdic through repeated breaks in the male succession, to endorse that Salle law of opinion which heralds strive to establish, and which has in nature no justification whatever. One of the oldest houses on earth, a house older than written history, that of Travancore, has descended out of the night of time through females only, the fathers not counting in the Royal pedigree. The King of Holland was not personally important, and his widow, Emma, once Princess of Waldeck, said to be a woman of most unusual competence, will entirely fill his place in European politics ; but the Duchy of Luxemburg becomes by his decease separate and independent. It is a little place of 1,000 square Smiles and 200,000 people, but is, fortunately for itself, coveted both by Germany and France, who therefore let it alone. It will belong henceforth to the Dukes of Nassau, who regard Germany and France with impartial antipathy, who are immensely rich, and who possess that sort of capacity for governing in a kindly, unprogressive, and non-sensational way, of which the old German families possess the secret. The Lnxemburgers seem quite content, and prefer freedom from conscription to the grandeur of Germany, or the more vivid life of the French Republic. That seems a little stupid, but, considering how very little happiness modern civilisation has to give, is probably wise.
Previous page
