“Le Prince de Courtenay est de l’Académie,
Quel ouvrage a-t-il fait? Sa généalogie.”
The phrase, “I am my own ancestor,” is traced to Andoche Junot. When Junot, a soldier who had risen from the ranks, was created Duke of Abrantes, a French nobleman of the old régime sneeringly asked him what was his ancestry. Junot replied, “Ah, ma foi, je n’en sais rien; moi je suis mon ancêtre.” (Faith, I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor.) The Emperor Tiberius, however, thus described Curtius Rufus: “He seems to be a man sprung from himself.” A similar reply is attributed to Napoleon, as he is said to have told his prospective father-in-law, the emperor of Austria, when the latter tried to trace the Bonaparte lineage to some petty prince: “Sire, I am my own Rudolph of Hapsburg.” (Rudolph was the founder of the Hapsburg family.)
Cinderella
The story of Cinderella is not the invention of some imaginative genius, but is founded on fact. According to Strabo, the story is as follows: One day a lady named Rhodopis was bathing in the Nile, and the wind carried one of her sandals and laid it at the feet of the king of Egypt, who was holding a court of justice in the open air not far away. His curiosity was excited by the singularity of the event and the elegance of the sandal, and he offered a reward for the discovery of the owner. Rhodopis claimed it, and it was found to fit her exactly. She was very beautiful, and the king married her. She lived two thousand years before the Christian era, and is remembered in history as the “Rosy-cheeked Queen” of Egypt.
Crossing the Bar
Did Tennyson find the suggestion for one of his latest poems, “Crossing the Bar,” in the letter written by the Rev. Donald Cargill in 1680 to a friend who was under sentence of death? Thus it runs: “Farewell, dearest friend, never to see one another any more, till at the right hand of Christ. Fear not, and the God of mercies grant a full gale and a fair entry into His kingdom, that may carry you sweetly and swiftly over the bar, that you find not the rub of death.”
Fourth Estate
Carlyle, in the fifth lecture on “Heroes and Hero Worship,” said, “Burke said there were three estates in Parliament, but in the reporters’ gallery yonder there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all.” This was in 1839 or 1840.