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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) 7.: GIBBON ON THE HOUSE OF BOURBON — ( P. 294 ) - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 6
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7.: GIBBON ON THE HOUSE OF BOURBON — ( P. 294 ) - Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 6 [1776]Edition used:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J.B. Bury with an Introduction by W.E.H. Lecky (New York: Fred de Fau and Co., 1906), in 12 vols. Vol. 6.
Part of: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 12 vols.
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7.GIBBON ON THE HOUSE OF BOURBON — (P. 294)“A Julian or Semiramis may reign in the North, while Arcadius and Honorius again slumber on the thrones of the House of Bourbon.” Thus the passage appeared in the first quarto edition (1781). In his Autobiography (Memoir E, in Mr. Murray’s edition, 1896, p. 324) Gibbon makes the following statement in a footnote: — “It may not be generally known that Louis XVI. is a great reader, and a reader of English books. On the perusal of a passage of my History (vol. iii. p. 636), which seems to compare him with Arcadius or Honorius, he expressed his resentment to the Prince of B—, from whom the intelligence was conveyed to me. I shall neither disclaim the allusion nor examine the likeness; but the situation of the late King of France excludes all suspicion of flattery, and I am ready to declare that the concluding observations of my third Volume were written before his accession to the throne.” Gibbon, however, altered the words “House of Bourbon” to “South” in his later edition, thus making the allusion ambiguous. |
