Bourbon

boor'bon, the last royal family of France. The name is derived from the name of a French province. The first Bourbon king was Henry of Navarre, who came to the throne as Henry IV in 1589. The family was deposed by the French Revolution in 1792, yet was restored in 1815 and again deposed by the Revolution of 1848. Louis Philippe was the last French Bourbon king. The noble family of Bourbon is one of the greatest in France. It rose to distinction in the tenth century. The great constable of Francis I was a Bourbon. Louis XIV, whose reign is considered the most glorious period of French history, was a Bourbon. The present royal family of Spain is a branch of the Bourbons. Another branch occupied the throne of Naples from 1735-1861. The later Bourbons were not progressive. It was Talleyrand who said, after the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, that they had "forgotten nothing and learned nothing." In politics, therefore, the term is applied to the ultra-conservative, those who are behind the times politically. The Democrats of the United States have been called Bourbons in derision by their political opponents. The Bourbon whiskey of Kentucky takes its name from Bourbon County, in which for a time it was made chiefly. See Navarre; Huguenot