was thirteen.  Owing to various causes, however, there have been fewer quarrels between French kings and their eldest sons than between English kings and their eldest sons.  Few French monarchs have been succeeded by their sons during the last three hundred years,—­but two, in fact, namely, Louis XIII., who followed his father, Henry IV., and Louis XIV., who succeeded to Louis XIII., his father.  It is two hundred and twenty years since a father was succeeded by a son in France,—­a circumstance that Napoleon III. should lay to heart, and not be too sure that the Prince Imperial is to become Napoleon IV.  There seems to be something fatal about the French purple, which has a strange tendency to spread itself, and to settle upon shoulders that could not have counted upon experiencing its weight and its warmth.  Sometimes it is hung up for the time, and becomes dusty, while republicans take a turn at governing, though seldom with success.  There were troubles in the families of Louis XIV., who was too heartless, selfish, and unfeeling not to be that worst kind of king, the domestic tyrant.  He tyrannized over even his mistresses.

Philip II., the greatest monarch of modern times,—­perhaps the greatest of all time, the extent and diversity of his dominions considered, and the ability of the races over which he ruled taken into the account,—­was under the painful necessity of putting his eldest son, Don Carlos, in close confinement, from which he never came forth until he was brought out feet foremost, the presumption being that he had been put to death by his father’s orders.  Carlos has been made a hero of romance, but a more worthless character never lived.  On his death-bed Philip II. was compelled to see how little his son Philip, who succeeded him, cared for his feelings and wishes.  Peter the Great put to death his son Alexis; and Frederick William I. of Prussia came very near taking the life of that son of his who afterward became Frederick the Great.

Jealousy is so common a feeling in Oriental royal houses, that it is hardly allowable to quote anything from their history; but we may be permitted to allude to the effect of one instance of paternal hate in the Ottoman family at the time of its utmost greatness.  Solyman the Magnificent was jealous of his eldest son, Mustapha, who is represented by all writers on the Turkish history of those times as a remarkably superior man, and who, had he lived, would have been a mighty foe to Christendom.  This son the Sultan caused to be put to death, and there are few incidents of a more tragical cast than those which accompanied Mustapha’s murder.  They might be turned to great use by an historical romancer, who would find matters all made to his hand.  The effect of this murder was to substitute for the succession that miserable drunkard, Selim II., who was utterly unable to lead the Turks in those wars that were absolutely essential to their existence as a dominant people.  “With him,” says Ranke, “begins the