The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 252 pages of information about The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X.

The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 252 pages of information about The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X.
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

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The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.