Note 356b — Chapter XI · Self-Culture—Facilities and Difficulties.

A writer in the ‘Edinburgh Review’ (July, 1859) observes that “the Duke’s talents seem never to have developed themselves until some active and practical field for their display was placed immediately before him. He was long described by his Spartan mother, who thought him a dunce, as only ‘food for powder.’ He gained no sort of distinction, either at Eton or at the French Military College of Angers.” It is not improbable that a competitive examination, at this day, might have excluded him from the army.