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Chap. XXII.
EDUCATION OF CHRISTIAN VI.
331
averted: but “ what’s done can’t be undone; and all
Louisa had to do was to remain quiet at Copenhagen,
and bring up her son Christian in the way he should go,
and not let him turn out a ne’er-do-well like his royal
father.” So Queen Louisa, and Catherine Buchwald
the grande maitresse, laid their heads together and
presided over the heir-apparent’s tuition. His education
appears to have been modelled on the Chinese system,
with a little dash of the old Venetians, who, though
they did not cramp the feet of their womankind, caused
them to wear heels of so lofty an altitude as to prevent
them from walking otherwise than with difficulty. The
young prince was set down to his studies—-dry
dissertations on theology, most incomprehensible to his
youthful mind — and made to recite prayers so
sen-tentiously worded that he forgot the commencement
of each sentence long before he came to the conclusion.
His attendants were aged, sedate men; he had no
companions of his own age ; was never allowed to see
strangers. His dress was, like his education,
straitlaced : he was arrayed in tight, stiff jackets; neck and
throat bound tight-laced round with a stock, the very
essence of buckram, preventing the circulation of his
blood; his gaiters cut into his very flesh; his
smallclothes scarce allowed of his seating himself; while his
extra high-heeled shoes, hard and tight, lamed him, and
a full-blown peruke weighed down the budding
inspiration of his youthful brain. Not much chance of the
prince running a muck, is there ?
He grew up under his mother’s
petticoat-government German to the backbone: in person small, thin,
and weakly, with a peculiar shrill-toned voice; he
knew nothing of war, was shy, and expressed himself
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