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THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF CHARLES X
THE ACCESSION OF CHARLES X
Let us listen to the Duchess of Orleans. "At these words, in the twinkling of an eye, all the crowd of courtiers deserted the Gallery to surround and follow the new King. It was like a torrent. We were borne along by it, and only at the door of the Hall of the Throne, my husband bethought himself that we no longer had aught to do there. We returned home, reflecting much on the feebleness of our poor humanity, and the nothingness of the things of this world."
Marshal Marmont, who was in the Gallery of Diana at the moment of the King's death, was much struck by the two phrases pronounced at an instant's interval by M. de Damas: "Gentlemen, the King is dead! The King, gentlemen!"
"The day was beginning to break," we read in the unpublished Memoirs of the Governess of the Children of France. "I went to the bed of Monseigneur. He was awakened. He was not surprised, and said nothing, and allowed himself to be dressed. Not so with Mademoiselle. I told her gently of the misfortune that had come upon her family. I was agitated. She questioned me, asking where was bon-papa. I told her that he was still in Paris, but was coming to Saint Cloud; then I added: 'Your bon-papa, Mademoiselle, is King, since the King is no more.' She reflected, then, repeating the word: 'King! Oh! that indeed is the worst of the story.' I was astonished, and wished her to explain her idea; she simply repeated it. I thought then she had conceived the notion of a king always rolled about in his chair."
THE ENTRY INTO PARIS
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."
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?
"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:--
THE TOMBS OF SAINT-DENIS
"This solemnity, absolutely novel for the greater number of the present generation, offered an aspect at once mournful and imposing. A monarch so justly regretted, a king so truly Christian, coming to take his place among the glorious remains of the martyrs of his race and the bones of his ancestors,--profaned, scattered by the revolutionary tempest, but which he had been able again to gather,--was a grave subject of reflection, a spectacle touching in its purpose and majestic in the pomp with which it was surrounded."
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