Imperial family

“ All, therefore, is not gold that glitters in the lives of the members of the imperial family, and the State policy that ordains there shall not be too many heirs near the throne often wrings the heart and embitters the existence of many of the tender-hearted princesses. ”

“ Article 12 In case a female of the Imperial Family marries a person other than the Emperor or the members of the Imperial Family, she shall lose the status of the Imperial Family member. Article 13 The consorts of a Shinno or O who leaves the status of the Imperial Family member, and his direct descendants and their consorts, excepting those females who are married to other members of the Imperial Family and their direct descendants, shall lose simultaneously the status of the Imperial Family member. ”

“ The independence of the nation cannot be complete, except the constituent principles of the present organization of France be secure from every foreign attack. One of the principles of this organization is the inheritance of the throne in the imperial family. ”

“ The direct issue of the Emperors of the present dynasty and their descendants in the male line for ever are entitled to wear a yellow girdle in token of their relationship to the Imperial family, each generation becoming a degree lower in rank, but always retaining this distinctive badge. ”

“ It is rather remarkable that Napoleon I., in the Moniteur of 22nd Messidor, an XIII., 1805, had scouted all idea of ancestry, and ordered a formal declaration to be inserted that his house dated from Marengo, quoting the lines of La Fontaine—“Rien n’est dangereux qu’un sot ami,” meaning the person who had drawn out his pedigree.
[21]
The Register of the Imperial family is a large folio volume, bound in red velvet, and having at the corners ornaments of silver-gilt, with the family cipher ‘N’ in the centre. ”

“ The Countess descends, it is true, from noble lineage; but her family is not one of those which, according to the customs of our House, we regard as our equals. Now, as only women from equal Houses can be regarded as equal in birth, this marriage must be regarded in the light of a morganatic marriage, and the children which, with God’s blessing, will spring from it cannot be given the rights of members of the Imperial House. ”

“ The Emperor being considered as the common father of his people is accordingly invested with the exercise of the same authority over them, as the father of a family exerts on those of his particular household. ”

“ Succession to the throne is a question of blood-relation with the reigning Emperor, and not a question of qualifications. The high officials whose qualifications are unusually good are not subservient to others but they are obedient to the succeeding Emperor, because of their gratitude for what the imperial family has done for them, and because their well-being is closely associated with that of the imperial household. ”

“ Even now-a-days, many a noble family, without imperial or royal patent, that is to say, such a family as derives its nobility from the origin of the country itself, a family which always was noble, because it was noble—autochthonous—would refuse an elevation to the title of Count. ”

“ That the title of Emperor, and the Imperial power, be made hereditary in his family, in the male line, according to the order of primogeniture: that in introducing into the organization of the constituted authorities, the modifications rendered necessary by the establishment of hereditary power, the equality, the liberty, and the rights of the people, shall be preserved in all their integrity. ”

“ Petersburg, I said, was politically necessary, and the command of my Imperial grandfather was consonant with the close family relations between me and the Russian Imperial house; therefore it would be carried out.
The Prince approved of the letter. The answer, which arrived after a while, was surprising. The Queen agreed that her grandson was in the right; he must act in accordance with the interests of his country; she would be glad to see him, even if it were later on, at her own home. ”

“ The Imperial mother may virtually go to sleep, until aroused at this stage of her children's and her grandchildren's growth by a call to adjudicate, as the supreme parent, upon the impending and, perhaps, contentious question of separation, while she finds at the same moment that a forty-fifth or a fiftieth member is about to be added to the world-wide colonial family. ”

“ The imperial dignity was not the only matter involved in the succession, but a vast amount of property also, and so many members of the imperial clan were interested in the result that it was deemed certain that the partisans of legitimacy would lie in wait for an opportunity of enforcing the claims of the rightful heir. ”

“ An hereditary succession to the crown is therefore now established, in this and most other countries, in order to prevent that periodical bloodshed and misery, which the history of antient imperial Rome, and the more modern experience of Poland and Germany, may shew us are the consequences of elective kingdoms. ”

“ If, however, such first born son shall have departed from this world without leaving male legitimate lay heirs,—by virtue of the present imperial edict, the right, vote and aforesaid power of electing shall devolve upon the elder lay brother descended by the true paternal line, and thence upon his first born lay son. ”

“ But when, as frequently has happened, his mind and body have been enfeebled by dissipation, and he has neither wit nor vigor to seize the reins of power, he has too often been supplanted by the ambition of a brother, or a wife of his father. When the Emperor leaves only a daughter, she is married to a member of the four imperial families, and her husband in that case becomes Emperor. ”

“ The Chief Qualities of the Race
Throughout the Far East the whole social fabric is based on the family; the whole state is, indeed, considered as one great family, with the Emperor at its head. It is the mothers who train Japanese children from infancy in the spirit of reverence and obedience to parents and elders in the family circle, and to the Emperor as the supreme chief of the great national family. ”

“ The same theory somewhat modified constitutes the life-principle of Korea, of Japan, and of their less advanced cousins who fill the vast centre of the Asiatic continent. From the emperor on his throne to the common coolie in his hovel it is the idea of kinship that knits the entire body politic together. The Empire is one great family; the family is a little empire. ”

“ The more constitutional government has advanced, the stronger has been the jealousy between the possessor of the throne and its heir. As the sway of parties has become more pronounced and more regularly organised, the split of the royal family between these parties has become a sort of assumed liability,—fatal at once to good government and to family peace and honour. ”

“ Somewhere or other, there were always wars of clan with clan. By the time of the sixteenth century personal safety could be found only under the protection of some military leader, able to exact his own terms for the favour of such protection. The question of the imperial succession,—which had almost wrecked the empire during the fourteenth century,—might be raised again at any time by some reckless faction, with the probable result of ruining civilization, and forcing the nation back to its primitive state of barbarism. ”

“ Others were for granting the kingdom to your daughter and some nobleman of our own country, who should succeed you after your death. But the greater number recommended some person descended from the family of the emperors, on whom you should bestow your daughter and crown. For they promised themselves a firm and lasting peace, as the consequence of such a marriage, since they would be under the protection of the Roman state. See then! God has vouchsafed to bring to you a young man, who is both a Roman, and also of the royal family of Britain ”

“ An advantage in living in a civilised land which is really governed lies in the fact that all the Kings and Queens and Emperors of the continent are closely related by blood or marriage—are, in fact, one large family. ”

“ His nomination as Prince Imperial was an even more arbitrary violation of the right of primogeniture than the case of his predecessor had been, for he was chosen in preference to his elder brother merely because, when the two youths were casually questioned as to what they wished for, the elder said, "a bow and arrows," and the younger, "the empire." ”

“ Our imperial ancestors and imperial parent, like gods, like sages, accumulated happiness and amassed glory. Many years elapsed from the date when our heavenly ancestor descended until now it is over 1,792,470 years. But the remote regions do not yet enjoy the blessings of imperial rule. Every town has always been allowed to have its lord, and every village its chief, who, each one for himself, makes division of territory and practises mutual aggression and conflict. ”

“ In connection with the ancestor-worship, which is the only form of worship performed by the upper classes, the Emperor's oath on his accession is interesting. "We, the successor to the prosperous throne of our Predecessors, do humbly and solemnly swear to the Imperial Founder of our House, and to our other Imperial Ancestors, that in pursuance of a great policy, co-extensive with the Heaven and with the Earth, we shall maintain, and secure from decline, the ancient form of government. ”

“ The political inconvenience which might arise from the circumstance of the reigning sovereign being connected by near and intimate relationship with a family of his British subjects will, probably, always be thought to render it desirable that some restriction should be placed on the marriage of the heir-apparent; but where the sovereign is blessed with a numerous offspring, there seems no sufficient reason for sending the younger branches of the royal house to seek wives or husbands in foreign countries. ”

“ Everything has to progress, and men possessing European education will be made use of by the reigning family. The first Emperor will certainly do all he can to capture the hearts of the people by means of adopting and carrying out in letter as well as in spirit constitutional government. The heir-apparent will pay attention to all new reforms and new things. Should he do so, the people will be able to console themselves by saying that they will aways be the people of a constitutional monarchy even after the succession to the throne of the heir-apparent. ”

“ It was an age when the unending ramifications of the various Imperial families furnished more occupants for thrones than there were thrones to occupy, and in which a successful claimant could almost always find a royal bride with whose name to strengthen his own hold on power. ”

“ An analysis of medieval Japanese history shows that the great feudal houses, so far from displaying an excessive idealism in the matter of fealty to one emperor, one lord, or one party, had evolved the eminently practical plan of letting different members take different sides, so that the family as a whole might come out as winner in any event, and thus avoid the confiscation of its lands. ”

“ The family has ceased to exist; we have only individuals. In their desire to become a nation, Frenchmen have abandoned the idea of empire; in proclaiming the equal rights of all children to their father's inheritance, they have killed the family spirit and created the State treasury. ”

“ The privileges of the mediatized princes consist of exemption from conscription, the enjoyment of the Principle called "equality of birth," which prevents the burgher wife of a noble acquiring her husband's rank, and the right to have their own "house law" for the regulation of family disputes and family affairs generally. No increase to the high nobility of Germany can accrue as no addition will ever be made to the once sovereign and mediatized families. ”

“ The crown being hereditary in one family, but elective in the person, and polygamy being permitted, must have multiplied these heirs very much, and produced constant disputes, so that it was found necessary to provide a remedy for the anarchy and effusion of royal blood, which was otherwise inevitably to follow. ”

“ The royal family was no otherwise distinguished from others, than as their personal merit acquired influence, or their high birth and capability of succession engaged respect. The companions of the prince were highly honoured for their faithful attachment to him, and their valourous atchievements in war; but, as to rights and privileges, were on the common footing of other freemen. The only distinction was between the chieftains, or lords of the villages, and the vassals who were under their jurisdiction. ”

“ It has always been one of the most revolting features of dynastic politics that the private relationships of members of ruling families have been entirely determined by considerations of dynastic expediency. In the sixteenth century this was eminently the case. Alliances were family arrangements, and corresponded to motives of family aggrandisement rather than to national interests. They were sealed by marriages, they were broken by divorces. So great were the responsibilities of royalty that the private life of members of royal houses was entirely sunk in their official position. ”

“ While other families connected with the French monarchy increased in wealth and influence, the severe struggles made by three generations to maintain their Imperial dignity so impoverished the ancestral domains that the successive holders, though undeniably of Royal descent and near relationship to the reigning dynasty, were not esteemed, and could not obtain recognition of their claims to be considered as Princes of the Blood Royal. ”