Charles X. had a kindly feeling, founded on very real sympathy, for the Duke of Orleans and all his family.  During the Emigration, as under the reign of Louis XVIII., he had always maintained very cordial relations with the Duke, and had tried to efface the bad memories of Philippe Egalite.  Charles X. was as confiding as Louis XVIII. was distrustful.  Optimist, like all good natures, the new King would not believe evil.  He attributed to others his own good qualities.  Louis XVIII. always had suspicions as to the Duke of Orleans.  “Since his return,” he said, in 1821, “the Duke of Orleans is the chief of a party without seeming to be.  His name is a threatening flag, his palace a rallying-place.  He makes no stir, but I can see that he makes progress.  This activity without movement is disquieting.  How can you undertake to check the march of a man who makes no step?” Every time the Duke attempted to bring up the question of exchanging his title of Most Serene Highness for that of Royal Highness, the King stubbornly resisted.  “The Duke of Orleans is quite near enough to the throne already,” he replied to all solicitations.  “I shall be careful to bring him no nearer.”

This refusal was very depressing to the Duke.  One circumstance rendered it still more annoying.  As a king’s daughter, his wife was a Royal Highness.  By this title she enjoyed honors denied to her husband.  When she was present at court with him she was first announced, both doors of the salon being opened:  “Her Royal Highness, Madame the Duchess of Orleans.”  Then one door having been closed, the usher announced:  “His Most Serene Highness, Monseigneur the Duke of Orleans.”  This distinction was very disagreeable to the Duke.  Charles X. hastened to abolish it.  September 21st, 1824, he accorded the title of Royal Highness to the Duke of Orleans, and three days later he conferred this title, so much desired, on the children of the sister of the Duke.  The latter showed his great pleasure.  Though he might favor liberalism and give pledges to democracy, he remained a Prince to the marrow of his bones.  He loved not only money, but honors, and attached extreme importance to questions of etiquette.  The memories of his childhood and his early youth bound him to the old regime and despite appearances to the contrary, this Prince, so dear to the bourgeois and to the National Guard, was always by his tastes and aspirations a man of Versailles.

Charles X. would gladly have said to the Duke of Orleans, as Augustus to Cinna, speaking of his benefits:—­

“Je t’en avais comble, je t’en veux accabler.”