Bourbon (borbon)

[F. Bourbon, > Sp. Borbon, It. Borbone.] 1. A member of the last royal family of France, or of any of its branches. The family took its name from its ancient seigniory of Bourbon (now Bourbon l'Archambault, in the department of Allier), and succeeded to the throne by collateral inheritance in 1589, in the person of Henry IV. The Bourbon dynasty was deposed in 1792, and restored in 1814. The revolution of 1830 brought to the throne Louis Philippe (who was deposed in 1848), of the younger or Orleans branch, which succeeded to all the claims of the family on the extinction of the elder branch in 1883. A line of Bourbon sovereigns has reigned in Spain (with two interruptions) since 1700, and a branch of this line held the throne of Naples or the Two Sicilies from 1735 to 1861. 2. One who, as was said of the Bourbons, "forgets nothing and learns nothing"; hence, in U. S. politics, an extreme conservative; especially, one who is behind the time and is opposed to all progre : originally applied to certain members of the Democratic party. -3. [l. c.] A kind of whisky made of wheat or Indian corn: originally limited to the corn-whisky made in Bourbon county, Kentucky.