He is no longer obliged to tell you what the King is who comes to you, what his misfortunes are, his virtues, his rights to the throne and to your love; he is no longer obliged to depict his person, to inform you how many members of his family still exist.  You know him, this Bourbon, the first to come, after our disaster, worthy herald of old France, to cast himself, a branch of lilies in his hand, between you and Europe.  Your eyes rest with love and pleasure on this Prince, who in the ripeness of years has preserved the charm and elegance of his youth, and who now, adorned with the diadem, still is but one Frenchman the more in the midst of you.  You repeat with emotion so many happy mots dropped by this new monarch, who from the loyalty of his heart draws the grace of happy speech.  What one of us would not confide to him his life, his fortune, his honor?  The man whom we should all wish as a friend, we have as King.  Ah!  Let us try to make him forget the sacrifices of his life!  May the crown weigh lightly on the white head of this Christian Knight!  Pious as Saint Louis, affable, compassionate, and just as Louis XII., courtly as Francis I., frank as Henry IV., may he be happy with all the happiness he has missed in his long past!  May the throne where so many monarchs have encountered tempests, be for him a place of repose!  Devoted subjects, let us crowd to the feet of our well-loved sovereign, let us recognize in him the model of honor, the living principle of our laws, the soul of our monarchical society; let us bless a guardian heredity, and may legitimacy without pangs give birth to a new King!  Let our soldiers cover with their flags the father of the Duke of Angouleme.  May watchful Europe, may the factions, if such there be still, see in the accord of all Frenchmen, in the union of the people and the army, the pledge of our strength and of the peace of the world!” The author of the Genie du Christianisme thus closed his prose dithyramb:  “May God grant to Louis XVIII. the crown immortal of Saint Louis!  May God bless the mortal crown of Saint Louis on the head of Charles X.!”

In this chant in honor of the King and of royalty, M. de Chateaubriand did not forget the Duke and Duchess of Angouleme, nor the Duchess of Berry and the Duke of Bordeaux.  “Let us salute,” he said, “the Dauphin and Dauphiness, names that bind the past to the future, calling up touching and noble memories, indicating the own son and the successor of the monarch, names under which we find the liberator of Spain and the daughter of Louis XVI.  The Child of Europe, the new Henry, thus makes one step toward the throne of his ancestor, and his young mother guides him to the throne that she might have ascended.”