It may even be doubted whether the individual who was never led to put the professions of others to the test by his real wants, has, in any instance, been completely aware of the little credit that is usually due to them.
A prince finds himself courted and adored long before he can have acquired a merit entitling him to such distinctions. By what arguments can you persuade him laboriously to pursue what appears so completely superfluous? How can you induce him to be dissatisfied with his present acquisitions, while every other person assures him that his accomplishments are admirable, and his mind a mirror of sagacity? How will you persuade him who finds all his wishes anticipated to engage in any arduous undertaking, or propose any distant object for his ambition?
But, even should you succeed in this, his pursuits may be expected to be either mischievous or useless. His understanding is distorted; and the basis of all morality, the recollection that other men are beings of the same order with himself, is extirpated. It would be unreasonable to expect from him anything generous and humane. Unfortunate as he is, his situation is continually propelling him to vice, and destroying the germs of integrity and virtue, before they are unfolded. If sensibility begin to discover itself, it is immediately poisoned by the blighting winds of flattery.
Amusement and sensuality call with an imperious voice, and will not allow him time to feel. Artificial as is the character he fills, even should he aspire to fame, it will be by the artificial methods of false refinement, or the barbarous inventions of usurpation and conquest, not by the plain and unornamented road of benevolence.
Some idea of the methods usually pursued, and the effects produced in the education of a prince, may be collected from a late publication of madame de Genlis, in which she gives an account of her own proceedings in relation to the children of the duke of Orleans. She thus describes the features of their disposition and habits, at the time they were committed to her care. 'The duke de Valois (the eldest) is frequently coarse in his manners, and ignoble in his expressions. He finds great humour in calling mean and common objects by their most vulgar appellations; all this seasoned with the proverbial propensity of Sancho, and set off with a loud forced laugh. His prate is eternal, nor does he suspect but that it must be an exquisite gratification to anyone to be entertained with it; and he frequently heightens the jest by a falsehood uttered in the gravest manner imaginable.
Neither he nor his brother has the least regard for anybody but themselves;Chapter hey are selfish and grasping, considering everything that is done for them as their due, and imagining that they are in no respect obliged to consult the happiness of others. The slightest reproof is beyond measure shocking to them, and the indignation they conceive at it immediately vents itself in sullenness or tears. They are in an uncommon degree effeminate, afraid of the wind or the cold, unable to run or to leap, or even so much as to walk at a round pace, or for more than half an hour at a time. The duke de Valois has an extreme terror of dogs, to such a degree as to turn pale and shriek at the sight of one.' 'When the children of the duke of Orleans were committed to my care, they had been accustomed, in winter, to wear under-waistcoats, two pair of stockings, gloves, muffs, etc. The eldest, who was eight years of age, never came downstairs without being supported by the arm of one or two persons; the domestics were obliged to render them the meanest services, and, for a cold or any slight indisposition, sat up with them for nights together.'
Madame de Genlis, a woman of uncommon talents, though herself infected with a considerable number of errors, corrected these defects in the young princes. But few princes have the good fortune to be educated by a person of so much independence and firmness as madame de Genlis, and we may safely take our standard for the average calculation rather from her predecessors than herself. Even were it otherwise, we have already seen what it is that a preceptor can do in the education of a prince. Nor should it be forgotten that the children under her care were not of the class of princes who seemed destined to a throne.