The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X. Imbert de Saint-Amand

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СКАЧАТЬ cortege followed this route: the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, the boulevards to the Rue Saint-Denis, the Rue Saint-Denis, the Place du Chatelet, the Pont au Change, the Rue de la Bailer, the Marche-Neuf, the Rue Neuve-Notre-Dame, the Parvis. At every moment the King reined in his superb Arab horse to regard more at ease the delighted crowd. He smiled and saluted with an air of kindness and a grace that produced the best impression. Charles X. was an excellent horseman; he presented the figure and air of a young man. The contrast naturally fixed in all minds, between his vigorous attitude and that of his predecessor, an infirm and feeble old man, added to the general satisfaction. The houses were decorated with white flags spangled with fleurs-de-lis. Triumphal arches were erected along the route of the sovereign. The streets and boulevards were strewn with flowers. At the sight of the monarch the happy people redoubled their acclamations. Benjamin Constant shouted: "Vive le roi!"—"Ah, I have captured you at last," smilingly remarked Charles X.

      Reaching the Parvis de Notre-Dame, the sovereign, before entering the Cathedral, paused before the threshold of the Hotel-Dieu. Fifty nuns presented themselves before him, "Sire," said the Prioress, "you pause before the house so justly termed the Hotel-Dieu, which has always been honored with the protection of our kings. We shall never forget, Sire, that the sick have seen at their bedside the Prince who is today their King. They know that at this moment your march is arrested by charity. We shall tell them that the King is concerned for their ills, and it will be a solace to them. Sire, we offer you our homage, our vows, and the assurance that we shall always fulfil with zeal our duties to the sick." Charles X. replied: "I know with what zeal you and these gentlemen serve the poor. Continue, Mesdames, and you can count on my benevolence and on my constant protection."

      The King was received at the Metropolitan Church by the Archbishop of Paris at the head of his clergy. The Domine salvum, fac regem, was intoned and repeated by the deputations of all the authorities and by the crowd filling the nave, the side-aisles, and the tribunes of the vast basilica. Then a numerous body of singers sang the Te Deum. On leaving the church, the King remounted his horse and returned to the Tuileries, along the quais, to the sound of salvos of artillery and the acclamations of the crowd. The Duchess of Berry, who had followed the King through all the ceremonies, entered the Chateau with him, and immediately addressed to the Governess of the Children of France this note: "From Saint Cloud to Notre-Dame, from Notre-Dame to the Tuileries, the King has been accompanied by acclamations, signs of approval and of love."

      Charles X., on Thursday, the 30th September, had to attend a review on the Champ-de-Mars. The morning of this day, the readers of all the journals found in them a decree abolishing the censorship and restoring liberty of the press. The enthusiasm was immense. The Journal de Paris wrote: "Today all is joy, confidence, hope. The enthusiasm excited by the new reign would be far too ill at ease under a censorship. None can be exercised over the public gratitude. It must be allowed full expansion. Happy is the Council of His Majesty to greet the new King with an act so worthy of him. It is the banquet of this joyous accession; for to give liberty to the press is to give free course to the benedictions merited by Charles X."

      The review was superb. After having heard Mass in the chapel of the Chateau of the Tuileries, the King mounted his horse at half-past eleven, and, accompanied by the Dauphin, the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Bourbon, proceeded to the Champ-de-Mars. Two caleches followed; the one was occupied by the Dauphiness, the Duchess of Berry, and the Duke of Bordeaux in the uniform of a colonel of cuirassiers—a four-year old colonel—the other by the Duchess of Orleans and Mademoiselle of Orleans, her sister-in-law. The weather was mild and clear. The twelve legions of the National Guard on foot, the mounted National Guard, the military household of the King, and all the regiments of the royal guard, which the sovereign was about to review, made a magnificent appearance. An immense multitude covered the slopes about the Champ-de-Mars. Charles X. harvested the effect of the liberal measure that he had first adopted. A thunder of plaudits and cheers greeted his arrival on the ground. At one moment, when he found himself, so to speak, tangled in the midst of the crowd, several lancers of his guard sought to break the circle formed about him by pushing back the curious with the handles of their lances. "My friends, no halberds!" the King called to them. This happy phrase, repeated from group to group, carried the general satisfaction to a climax. A witness of this military ceremony, the Count of Puymaigre, at that time Prefect of the Oise, says in his curious Souvenirs:—

      "Charles X. appeared to have dissipated all the dangers that for ten years had menaced his august predecessor.

      "On all sides there rose only acclamations of delight in favor of the new King, who showed himself so popular, and whose gracious countenance could express only benevolent intentions. I was present, mingling with the crowd, at the first review by Charles X. on the Champ-de-Mars, and the remarks were so frankly royalist, that any one would have been roughly treated by the crowd had he shown other sentiments."

      The Duchess of Berry was full of joy. She quivered with pleasure. Very popular in the army and among the people, as at court and in the city, she was proud to show her fine child, who already wore the uniform, to the officers and soldiers. She appeared to all eyes the symbol of maternal love, and the mothers gazed upon her boy as if he had been their own. As soon as the little Prince was seen, there was on every face an expression of kindliness and sympathy. He was the Child of Paris, the Child of France. Who could have foretold then that this child, so loved, admired, applauded, would, innocent victim, less than six years later, be condemned to perpetual exile, and by whom?

      Charles X. had won a triumph. Napoleon, at the time of his greatest glories, at the apogee of his prodigious fortunes, had never had a warmer greeting from the Parisian people. In the course of the review the King spoke to all the colonels. On his return to the Tuileries he went at a slow pace, paused often to receive petitions, handed them to one of his suite, and responded in the most gracious manner to the homage of which he was the object. An historian not to be accused of partiality for the Restoration has written: "On entering the Tuileries, Charles X. might well believe that the favor that greeted his reign effaced the popularity of all the sovereigns who had gone before. Happy in being King at last, moved by the acclamations that he met at every step, the new monarch let his intoxicating joy expand in all his words. His affability was remarked in his walks through Paris, and the grace with which he received all petitioners who could approach him." Everywhere that he appeared, at the Hotel-Dieu, at Sainte-Genvieve, at the Madeleine, the crowd pressed around him and manifested the sincerest enthusiasm. M. Villemain, in the opening discourse of his lectures on eloquence at the Faculty of Letters, was wildly applauded when he pronounced the following eulogium on the new sovereign: "A monarch kindly and revered, he has the loyalty of the antique ways and modern enlightenment. Religion is the seal of his word. He inherits from Henry IV. those graces of the heart that are irresistible. He has received from Louis XIV. an intelligent love of the arts, a nobility of language, and that dignity that imposes respect while it seduces." All the journals chanted his praises. Seeing that the Constitutionnel itself, freed from censorship, rendered distinguished homage to legitimacy, he came to believe that principle invincible. He was called Charles the Loyal. At the Theatre-Francais, the line of Tartufe—

      "Nous vivons sous un prince ennemi de la fraude"—

      was greeted with a salvo of applause. The former adversaries of the King reproached themselves with having misunderstood him. They sincerely reproached themselves for their past criticisms, and adored that which they had burned. M. de Vaulabelle himself wrote:—

      "Few sovereigns have taken possession of the throne in circumstances more favorable than those surrounding the accession of Charles X."

      It seemed as if the great problem of the conciliation of order and liberty had been definitely solved. The white flag, rejuvenated by the Spanish war, had taken on all its former splendor. The best officers, the best soldiers of the imperial guard, served the King in the royal guard with a devotion proof against everything. Secret societies had ceased their subterranean manoeuvres. No more disturbances, no more plots. In the Chambers, the Opposition, reduced to an insignificant СКАЧАТЬ