War and Peace vocabulary

A strange thing has happened to a scion of our defunct aristocracy. (De profundis!) The grandfathers of these scions ruined themselves at the gaming-tables; their fathers were forced to serve as officers or subalterns; some have died just as they were about to be tried for innocent thoughtlessness in the handling of public funds.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Idiot (1887)

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Prince Andrew Bolkónski, Prince Nicholas Bolkonski’s son, one of the major characters in the novel. He is scion of a wealthy landowning family noted for its military achievements

Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace

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I recognized the old chief's grim and stately statuesque air—the air as of a last surviving scion of the old man-eating Hawaiian nobility.

Grant Allen. The White Man's Foot

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In these days of nouveaux riches it is refreshing to find a case where the scion of an old county family which has fallen upon evil days is able to make his own fortune and to bring it back with him to restore the fallen grandeur of his line.