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 minority, was discouraged or converted.  The ambitious spirits of whom it was composed turned their thoughts toward the rising sun.  Peace had happily fecundated the prodigious resources of the country.  Finances, commerce, agriculture, industry, the fine arts, everything was prospering.  The public revenues steadily increased.  The ease with which riches came inclined all minds toward optimism.  The salons had resumed the most exquisite traditions of courtesy and elegance.  It was the boast that every good side of the ancien regime had been preserved and every bad one rejected.  France was not only respected, she was a la mode.  All Europe regarded her with sympathetic admiration.  No one in 1824 could have predicted 1880.  The writers least favorable to the Restoration had borne witness to the general calm, the prevalence of good will, the perfect accord between the country and the crown.  The early days of the reign of Charles X. were, so to speak, the honeymoon of the union of the King and France.