Francis Ferdinand is the son of Francis Joseph’s brother, Charles Louis, and himself the brother of the Archduke Otto whose outrageous eccentricities we have reviewed, and of the Archduke Frederick Charles who wooed and won the homely daughter of the mathematical master, after helping her to shell the peas. He was not classed in his youth with the Archdukes who matter, for he was a delicate boy, and it seemed unlikely that he would live to grow up. Though he grew up, he remained delicate, and it was still assumed that he would die young. Hence the talk, which came to nothing, of marrying the Archduchess Elizabeth to Prince Eitel Fritz, and securing the succession to the throne to her by a fresh Pragmatic Sanction. Whether we regard him as having been well or badly brought up depends upon our educational ideals. If it be good to be a Catholic, and better still to be a bigoted Catholic, then his upbringing was admirable. From his earliest years he was taught to walk, if not with God, at least with the Jesuits: the worthy son of a father of limited intelligence, who combined (if his portraits are to be trusted) the smug appearance of a sinister family solicitor with the fanaticism of an Ultramontane reactionary. There are those, to this day, who sum him up with the statement that he is “in the hands of the Jesuits”; but that is a phrase which may, in practice, mean anything or nothing. When princes and priests form a Holy Alliance, the wisdom of the serpent is quite as likely to be found in one partner of the combination as in the other. Their interests are seldom identical, and exploitation is a game at which two can play. [Illustration: _Photo_ _Adèle_ THE ARCHDUKE FRANCIS FERDINAND.] It mattered little as long as Francis Ferdinand was expected to die, at any instant, of consumption; but he did not die of that disease, and perhaps he never really had it. He wintered in warm climates; he took cod liver oil; he travelled. Treatment and medicine produced the desired effect. Francis Ferdinand became as well able as any of his relatives to take his place in public life, and had to be reckoned with. The question of finding a wife for him became urgent. There were plenty of Archduchesses available; why did he not choose one of them and beget an heir? That was what Francis Joseph wanted to know when he saw his nephew thirty-five or more, and still a bachelor. The resulting dialogues are said to have been rather heated.