Ancestry
On one occasion Mr. John Bright said, in the course of a speech, “The noble lord comes of a race distinguished, I am told, as having come over with the Conqueror. I never heard that any of them have since been distinguished for anything else.” This sentiment, though probably Mr. Bright knew it not, found epigrammatic expression in France more than a century ago, in a distich composed when A. Courtenay, in compliment to his birth, was elected a member of the Academy:
“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.)