“In addition to the underhung lower jaw and the large lower lip, the Habsburg physiognomy presents the following characteristic features: excessive length, and, sometimes, excessive size of the nose; ‘exorbitism,’ more or less pronounced, with a forehead often of considerable height. One would say that the head, squeezed in by lateral pressure, had undergone a concomitant vertical allongation, and had been stretched, and pulled up and down at the same time. According to Dr. Galippe, the lateral flattening of the skull is the fundamental characteristic, and all the other abnormalities follow from it.”
That is what Dr. Rubbrecht makes of the portraits. He generalises only as a student of physiognomy, and does not discuss mental and moral issues, or presume to predict the future. Dr. Galippe is more outspoken:—
“The Habsburgs” (he writes), “having, by their intermarriages, developed a degenerate taint, and having transmitted it, either separately or in conjunction with other taints, both physical and psychical, to the families matrimonially allied with them, have brought into existence a specific type of human animal, by the same means which the breeders of dogs and horses employ for the creation of a new sub-species.”
As for the general consequences of such in-breeding, he continues:—
“Even those aristocratic families which present no original mark of degeneracy disappear quickly. It follows, a fortiori, that those families which, possessing such characteristics, perpetuate them by contracting marriages within the degrees of consanguinity, are doomed to a still more speedy extinction.”
As for the case of the Habsburgs in particular, he concludes:—
“The Habsburgs of Spain have long since been swept off the stage of history, disappearing in sterility or insanity. The Habsburgs of Austria, numerous though the representatives of the House are at the present time, will end by disappearing in their turn as an historic family, if they persist in their errors,—that is to say, in their marriages with blood relations.”
It is a new way of looking at an old problem,—a new thought suggested by the latest of the sciences; and it opens the door to reflections of great and urgent moment to many other royal houses besides that of Habsburg. In a general way, it has long been held to be almost as improper for Kings and Queens to marry their subjects as for angels to marry the daughters of men. A purer and bluer blood ran in their veins than in the veins of their subjects; and to adulterate that blue blood with red blood was to degrade it. They must, therefore, seek their brides and bridegrooms within the magic circle. Kings must marry Queens, and Princes must marry Princesses; and the distinctive exclusiveness of reigning houses must be maintained by a succession of unions between cousins.
That view of the matter has continued to prevail in royal circles—and also in high political and diplomatic circles—long after the students of heredity have established conclusions unfavourable to such courses. The arguments can hardly have failed to reach the ears of those whom they concerned; and the feeling—tacit, if not avowed—has presumably been that Kings, and Queens, and Princes and Princesses are so great and good and glorious that the laws of Nature do not apply to them. But that is not the case. Science shows that Kings cannot override the laws of Nature even in the countries in which they are permitted to override the laws of the land; that the price which Nature exacts for exclusiveness is degeneracy; that hardly any royal family anywhere has failed to pay that price; that the percentage of insanity has, through the ages, been higher among hereditary rulers whose blue blood has thus been protected from admixture than in any other class of the community; and that the sound physiological instinct is that on which King Cophetua acted in the legend, when the bare-footed beggar-maid appeared before him:—
As shines the moon in clouded skies,