As he is the heir to a throne, it is never forgotten by those about him that considerable importance is to be annexed to his favour or his displeasure. Accordingly, they never express themselves in his presence frankly and naturally, either respecting him or themselves. They are supporting a part. They play under a mask. Their own fortune and emolument is always uppermost in their minds, at the same time that they are anxious to appear generous, disinterested and sincere. All his caprices are to be complied with. All his gratifications are to be studied, They find him a depraved and sordid mortal; they judge of his appetites and capacities by their own; and the gratifications they recommend serve to sink him deeper in folly and vice.
What is the result of such an education? Having never experienced contradiction, the young prince is arrogant and presumptuous. Having always been accustomed to the slaves of necessity or the slaves of choice, he does not understand even the meaning of the word freedom. His temper is insolent, and impatient of parley and expostulation. Knowing nothing, he believes himself sovereignly informed, and runs headlong into danger, not from firmness and courage, but from the most egregious willfulness and vanity. Like Pyrrho among the ancient philosophers, if his attendants were at a distance, and he trusted himself alone in the open air, he would perhaps be run over by the next coach, or fall down the first precipice. His violence and presumption are strikingly contrasted with the extreme timidity of his disposition. The first opposition terrifies him, the first difficulty, seen and understood, appears insuperable. He trembles at a shadow, and at the very semblance of adversity is dissolved into tears. It has accordingly been observed that princes are commonly superstitious beyond the rate of ordinary mortals.
Above all, simple, unqualified truth is a stranger to his ear. It either never approaches; or, if so unexpected a guest should once appear, it meets with so cold a reception as to afford little encouragement to a second visit. The longer he has been accustomed to falsehood and flattery, the more grating will it sound. The longer he has been accustomed to falsehood and flattery, the more terrible will the talk appear to him to change his tastes, and discard his favourites. He will either place a blind confidence in all men, or, having detected the insincerity of those who were most agreeable to him, will conclude that all men are knavish and designing.
As a consequence of this last opinion, he will become indifferent to mankind, and callous to their sufferings, and will believe that even the virtuous are knaves under a craftier mask. Such is the education of an individual who is destined to superintend the affairs, and watch for the happiness, of millions.
In this picture are contained the features which most obviously constitute the education of a prince, into the conduct of which no person of energy and virtue has by accident been introduced. In real life it will be variously modified, but the majority of the features, unless in rare instances, will remain the same. In no case can the education of a friend and benefactor of human kind, as sketched in a preceding page, by any speculative contrivance be communicated.
Nor is there any difficulty in accounting for the universal miscarriage.
The wisest preceptor, thus circumstanced, must labour under insuperable disadvantages. No situation can be so artificial as that of a prince, so difficult to be understood by him who occupies it, so irresistibly propelling the mind to mistake. The first ideas it suggests are of a tranquillizing and soporific nature. It fills him with the opinion of his secretly possessing some inherent advantage over the rest of his species, by which he is formed to command, and they to obey. If you assure him of the contrary, you can expect only an imperfect and temporary credit; for facts, when, as in this case, they are continually deposing against you, speak a language more emphatic and intelligible than words. If it were not as he supposes, why should everyone that approaches be eager to serve him? The sordid and selfish motives by which they are really actuated, he is very late in detecting.