The coronation of Louis XVI. took place the 11th of June, 1775, and since that time there had been none. For Louis XVII. there was none but that of sorrow. Louis XVIII. had desired it eagerly, but he was not sufficiently strong or alert to bear the fatigue of a ceremony so long and complicated, and his infirmities would have been too evident beneath the vault of the ancient Cathedral of Rheims. An interval of fifty years—from 1775 to 1825—separated the coronation of Louis XVI. from that of his brother Charles X. How many things had passed in that half-century, one of the most fruitful in vicissitudes and catastrophes, one of the strangest and most troubled of which history has preserved the memory!
Chateaubriand, who, later, in his Memoires d'outretombe, so full of sadness and bitterness, was to speak of the coronation in a tone of scepticism verging on raillery, celebrated at the accession of Charles, in almost epic language, the merits of this traditional solemnity without which a "Very Christian King" was not yet completely King. In his pamphlet, Le roi est mort! Vive le roi! he conjured the new monarch to give to his crown this religious consecration. "Let us humbly supplicate Charles X. to imitate his ancestors," said the author of the Genie du Christianisme. "Thirty-two sovereigns of the third race have received the royal unction, that is to say, all the sovereigns of that race except Jean 1er, who died four days after his birth, Louis XVII., and Louis XVIII., on whom royalty fell, on one in the Tower of the Temple, on the other in a foreign land. The words of Adalberon, Archbishop of Rheims, on the subject of the coronation of Hugh Capet, are still true to-day. 'The coronation of the King of the French,' he says, 'is a public interest and not a private affair, Publica, sunt haec negotia, non privata.' May Charles X. deign to weigh these words, applied to the author of his race; in weeping for a brother, may he remember that he is King! The Chambers or the Deputies of the Chambers whom he may summon to Rheims in his suite, the magistrates who shall swell his cortege, the soldiers who shall surround his person, will feel the faith of religion and royalty strengthened in them by this imposing solemnity. Charles VII. created knights at his coronation; the first Christian King of the French, at his received baptism with four thousand of his companions in arms. In the same way Charles X. will at his coronation create more than one knight of the cause of legitimacy, and more than one Frenchman will there receive the baptism of fidelity."
Charles X. had no hesitation. This crowned representative of the union of the throne and the altar did not comprehend royalty without coronation. Not to receive the holy unction would have been for him a case of conscience, a sort of sacrilege. In opening the session of the Chambers in the Hall of the Guards at the Louvre, December 22d, 1824, he announced, amid general approval, the grand solemnity that was to take place at Rheims in the course of the following year. "I wish," he said, "the ceremony of my coronation to close the first session of my reign. You will attend, gentlemen, this august ceremony. There, prostrate at the foot of the same altar where Clovis received the holy unction, and in the presence of Him who judges peoples and kings, I shall renew the oath to maintain and to cause to be respected the institutions established by my brother; I shall thank Divine Providence for having deigned to use me to repair the last misfortunes of my people, and I shall pray Him to continue to protect this beautiful France that I am proud to govern."
If Napoleon, amid sceptical soldiers, former conventionnels, and former regicides, had easily secured the adoption of the idea of his coronation at Notre-Dame, by so much the more easy was it for Charles X. to obtain the adoption, by royalist France, of the project of his coronation at Rheims. "The King saw in this act," said Lamartine, "a real sacrament for the crown, the people a ceremony that carried its imagination back to the pomps of the past, politicians a concession to the court of Rome, claiming the investiture of kings, and a denial in fact of the principle, not formulated but latent since 1789, of the sovereignty of the people. But as a rule, there was no vehement discussion of an act generally considered as belonging to the etiquette of royalty, without importance for or against the institutions of the country. It was the fete of the accession to the throne—a luxury of the crown. The oaths to exterminate heretics, formerly taken by the kings of France at their coronation, were modified in concert with the court of Rome and the bishops. For these was substituted the oath to govern according to the Charter. Thus it was in reality a new consecration of liberty as well as of the crown." The French love pomp, ceremonies, spectacles. The idea of a consecration was not displeasing to them, and with rare exceptions, the Voltaireans themselves refrained from criticising the ceremony that was in the course of preparation. It soon became the subject of conversation on every side.
Six millions voted by the two Chambers for the expenses of the coronation, at the time that the civil list was regulated at the beginning of the reign, permitted the repairs required by the Cathedral of Rheims to be begun in January, 1825. The arches that had sunken, or threatened to do so, were strengthened; the ancient sculptured decorations were restored; the windows were completed; the fallen statues were raised. It was claimed that even the holy ampulla had been found, that miraculous oil, believed, according to the royal superstitions of former ages, to have been brought from heaven by a dove for the anointing of crowned heads. The Revolution thought that it had destroyed this relic forever. The 6th of October, 1793, a commissioner of the Convention, the representative of the people, Ruhl, had, in fact, publicly broken it on the pedestal of the statue of Louis XV. But it was related that faithful hands had succeeded in gathering some fragments of the phial as well as some particles of the balm contained in it. The 25th of January, 1819, the Abbe Seraine, who in 1793 was cure of Saint-Remi of Rheims, made the following declaration:—
"The 17th of October, 1793, M. Hourelle, then municipal officer and first warden of the parish of Saint-Remi, came to me and notified me, from the representative of the people, Ruhl, of the order to remit the reliquary containing the holy ampulla, to be broken. We resolved, M. Hourelle and I, since we could do no better, to take from the holy ampulla the greater part of the balm contained in it. We went to the Church of Saint-Remi; I withdrew the reliquary from the tomb of the saint, and bore it to the sacristy, where I opened it with the aid of small iron pincers. I found placed in the stomach of a dove of gold and gilded silver, covered with white enamel, having the beak and claws in red, the wings spread, a little phial of glass of reddish color about an inch and a half high corked with a piece of crimson damask. I examined this phial attentively in the light, and I perceived a great number of marks of a needle on the sides; then I took from a crimson velvet bag, embroidered with fleurs-de-lis in gold, the needle used at the time of the consecration of our kings, to extract the particles of balm, dried and clinging to the glass. I detached as many as possible, of which I took the larger part, and remitted the smaller to M. Hourelle."
The particles thus preserved were given into the hands of the Archbishop of Rheims, who gathered them in a new reliquary.
Sunday, the 22d of May, 1825, the day of the feast of the Pentecost, the Archbishop of Rheims assembled in a chapel of that city the metropolitan clergy, the principal authorities, and the persons who had contributed to the preservation of the particles of the precious relic, in order to proceed, in their presence, to the transfusion of those particles into the holy chrism, to be enclosed in a new phial. A circumtantial report of this ceremony was prepared in duplicate.
"Thus," said the Moniteur, May 26, "there remains no doubt that the holy oil that will flow on the forehead of Charles X. in the solemnity of his consecration, is the same as that which, since Clovis, has consecrated the French monarchs."
The day of the consecration approached. The Mayor of Rheims, M. Ruinard de Brimont, had not a moment's rest. At the consecration of Louis XV., about four hundred lodgings had been marked with chalk. For that of Charles X. there were sixteen hundred, and those who placed them at the service of the administration asked no compensation. The 19th of May was begun the placing of the exterior decorations on the wooden porch erected in front of the door of the basilica. It harmonized so completely with the plan of the edifice that "at thirty toises," it seemed a part of the edifice. The centrings and the interior portieres of this porch presented to the view a canopy sown with fleurs-de-lis in the midst of which stood out the royal cipher and the crown of France, modelled in antique fashion. These decorations were continued from the portal along the beautiful gallery that led to the palace. The palace itself, whose apartments had been adorned and furnished with royal magnificence, was entered by a very elegant porch. The grand feasting-hall, with its Gothic architecture, its colored glass, its high chimney-piece covered with escutcheons and surmounted by a statue of Saint-Remi, its portraits of all the kings of France, was resplendent. Three tables were to be set in the royal feasting-hall,—that of the King, that of the Dauphiness, and that of the Duchess of Berry. A gallery enclosed in glass, where there was a table of one hundred and thirty covers, had been built as by enchantment. On leaving the feasting-hall, one entered the covered gallery, which, by a gentle incline, led to the Cathedral. This gallery was formed of twenty-four arcades of fifteen feet each, and joined at right angles the porch erected before the portal. By this arrangement the King could proceed on a level from his apartment to the Cathedral.
In the middle of the nave was erected a magnificent jube, where the throne of Charles X. was placed. The cornice of the Corinthian order was supported by twenty columns. At the four corners there were gilded angels. The summit was surmounted by a statue of Religion and an angel bearing the royal crown. This jube, glittering with gold, was placed about one hundred and fifty feet from the portal. There was a passage under it to reach the choir, and the ascent to it was by a staircase of thirty steps. As it was open, the King upon his throne could be seen from all parts of the basilica. At the end of the choir, to the right on entering, was the gallery of the Dauphiness and the Duchess of Berry; to the left, opposite, was that of the princes and princesses of the blood; lower, toward the jube, and also on the left, that of the ambassadors and strangers of distinction; by the side of the jube, the gallery of the first gentlemen of the chamber of the King. There were, moreover, two rows of galleries on each side of the nave. The sanctuary was beaming with gold. The pillars, surrounded with wainscoting, were covered with rich Gothic ornaments. Above each of the galleries was a portrait of a king of France seated on his throne; still higher, portraits of bishops and statues of the cities of France in niches. At the back, a platform had been constructed for the musicians of the Chapel of the King. The choir and the sanctuary were to be lighted by thirty-four grand chandeliers, besides the candelabra attached to each pillar.
Some days before the coronation, which excited the curiosity of all Europe, the city of Rheims was filled with a crowd of tourists. The streets and promenades of the city, usually so quiet, presented an extraordinary animation. There had been constructed a bazaar, tents, cafes, places for public games, and at the gates of the city there was a camp of ten thousand men. To visit this camp was a favorite excursion for the people and for strangers. The soldiers assembled each evening before their tents and sang hymns to the sovereign and the glory of the French arms. In the evening of the 22d of May, these military choruses were closed by the serment francais, sung by all voices. At the words "Let us swear to be faithful to Charles!" all heads were uncovered, and the soldiers waving their helmets and shakos in the air, cried over and again, "Long live the King!"
On May 24th, the King left Paris with the Dauphin. Before going to Rheims he stopped at the Chateau of Compiegne, where he remained until the 27th, amid receptions and fetes and hunts.
M. de Chateaubriand was already at Rheims. He wrote on May 26:—
"The King arrives day after to-morrow. He will be crowned Sunday, the 29th. I shall see him place upon his head a crown that no one dreamed of when I raised my voice in 1814. I write this page of my Memoirs in the room where I am forgotten amid the noise. This morning I visited Saint-Remi and the Cathedral decorated in colored paper. The only clear idea that I can have of this last edifice is from the decorations of the Jeanne d'Arc of Schiller, played at Berlin. The opera-scene painters showed me on the banks of the Spree, what the opera-scene painters on the banks of the Vesle hide from me. But I amused myself with the old races, from Clovis with his Franks and his legion come down from heaven, to Charles VII. with Jeanne d'Arc."
The writer, who some weeks earlier had expressed himself in terms so dithyrambic as to the consecration, now wrote as follows of this religious and monarchical solemnity:—
"Under what happy auspices did Louis XVI. ascend the throne! How popular he was, succeeding to Louis XV.! And yet what did he become? The present coronation will be the representation of a coronation. It will not be one; we shall see the Marshal Moncey, an actor at that of Napoleon, the Marshal who formerly celebrated the death of the tyrant Louis XVI. in his army, brandish the royal sword at Rheims in his rank as Count of Flanders or Duke of Aquitaine. To whom can this parade really convey any illusion? I should have wished no pomp to-day; the King on horseback, the church bare, adorned only with its ancient arches and tombs; the two Chambers present, the oath of fidelity to the Charter taken aloud on the Bible. This would have been the renewal of the monarchy; they might have begun it over again with liberty and religion. Unfortunately there was little love of liberty, even if they had had at least a taste for glory."
This is not all; the curious royalist, as if disabused as to Bourbon glories, so extolled by him, glorifies, apropos of the coronation of Charles X., the Napoleon whom in 1814 he called disdainfully "Buonaparte," loading him with the most cutting insults:—
"After all, did not the new coronation, when the Pope anointed a man as great as the chief of the second race, by a change of heads alter the effect of the ancient ceremony of our history? The people have been led to think that a pious rite does not dedicate any one to the throne, or else renders indifferent the choice of the brow to be touched by the holy oil. The supernumeraries at Notre-Dame de Paris, playing also in the Cathedral of Rheims, are no longer anything but the obligatory personages of a stage that has become common. The advantage really is with Napoleon, who furnishes his figurants to Charles X. The figure of the Emperor thenceforth dominates all. It appears in the background of events and ideas. The leaflets of the good time to which we have attained shrivel at the glance of his eagles."
Charles X. left Compiegne the 27th of May in the morning, and slept at Fismes. The next day, the 28th, he had just quitted this town and was descending a steep hill, when several batteries of the royal guard fired a salute at his departure; the horses, frightened, took flight. Thanks to the skill of the postilion, there was no accident to the King; but a carriage of his suite, in which were the Duke of Aumont, the Count de Cosse, the Duke of Damas, and the Count Curial, was overturned and broken, and the last two wounded. At noon Charles X. arrived at a league and a half from Rheims, at the village of Tinqueux, where he was awaited by the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, the officers of his civil and military household, the authorities of Rheims, the legion of the mounted National Guard of Paris, etc. He entered the gold carriage,—termed the coronation carriage,—where the Dauphin and the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon took their places beside him. The cortege then took up its march. From Tinqueux to Rheims, the royal coach, gleaming with gold, passed under a long arcade of triumphal arches adorned with streamers and foliage. From the gates of the city to the Cathedral, flowers strewed the sand that covered the ground. All the houses were hung with carpets and garlands; at all the windows, from all the balconies, from all the roofs, innumerable spectators shouted their acclamations; the cortege advanced to the sound of all the bells of the city, and to the noise of a salvo of artillery of one hundred and one guns. The King was received under a dais at the door of the metropolitan church, by the Archbishop of Rheims in his pontifical robes, and accompanied by his suffragans, the Bishops of Soissons, Beauvais, Chalons, and Amiens. The Archbishop presented the holy water to the sovereign, who knelt, kissed the Gospels, then was escorted processionally into the sanctuary. His prie-dieu was placed at fifteen feet from the altar, on a platform, about which was a magnificent canopy hung from the ceiling of the Cathedral.
The Dauphiness had entered her gallery with the Duchess of Berry and the princesses of the blood. The Archbishop celebrated the vespers, and then the Cardinal de La Fare ascended the pulpit and delivered a sermon in which he said:—
"God of Clovis, if there is here below a spectacle capable of interesting Thy infinite Majesty, would it not be that which in this solemnity fixes universal attention and invites and unites all prayers? These days of saintly privilege, in which the hero of Tolbiac, and thirteen centuries after him, the sixty-fifth of his successors have come to the same temple to receive the same consecration, can they be confounded with the multitude of human events, to be buried and lost in the endless annals? To what, O great God! if not to the persistence of Thy immutable decrees, can we attribute, on this earth, always so changing and mobile, the supernatural gift of this miraculous duration?"
The Cardinal covered with praises not only the King, but the Dauphin, the Dauphiness, the Duchess of Berry, the Duke of Bordeaux. He cried:—
"Constantly happy as King, may Charles X. be constantly happy as father!
"May his paternal glances always see about him, shining with a brilliancy that nothing can change, this family so precious, the ornament of his court, the charm of his life, the future of France!
"This illustrious Dauphin, the terror of the genius of evil, the swift avenger of the majesty of kings, conquering hero and peace-maker!
"This magnanimous Princess, the living image of celestial charity, the visible Providence of the unfortunate, the model of heroism as of virtue!
"This admirable mother of the Child of Miracle, who restored hope to the dismayed nation, astonished it by her courage and captivates it by her goodness!
"This tender scion of the first branch of the lilies, the object, before his birth, of so many desires, and now of so many hopes."
The Prince of the Church, amid general emotion, thus closed his discourse:—
"May it be, O Lord! thy protecting will, that if the excess of ills has surpassed our presentiments and our fear, the reality of good may, in its turn, surpass our hopes and our desires.
"Condescend that the lasting succor of Thy grace may guide in an unbroken progress of prosperity and lead to happiness without vicissitude or end, our King, Thy adorer, and his people, who, under his laws, shall be more than ever religious and faithful."
After the sermon, the Archbishop celebrated the Te Deum, to which Charles X. listened standing. Then after having kissed the altar and a reliquary in which was a piece of the true cross, the sovereign returned to his apartments in the Archbishop's palace.
Thus passed the eve of the consecration. The same day M. de Chateaubriand wrote:—
"Rheims, Saturday, the eve of the consecration. I saw the King enter. I saw pass the gilded coaches of the monarch who, a little while ago, had not a horse to mount; I saw rolling by, carriages full of courtiers who had not known how to defend their master. This herd went to the church to sing the Te Deum, and I went to visit a Roman ruin, and to walk alone in an elm grove called the Bois d'Amour. I heard from afar the jubilation of the bells; I contemplated the towers of the Cathedral, secular witnesses of this ceremony always the same and yet so different in history, time, ideas, morals, usages, and customs. The monarchy perished, and for a long time the Cathedral was changed to a stable. Does Charles X., when he sees it again to-day, recall that he saw Louis XVI. receive anointment in the same place where he in his turn is to receive it? Will he believe that a consecration shelters him from misfortune? There is no longer a hand with virtue enough to cure the king's evil, no ampulla with holy power sufficient to render kings inviolable."
Such was the disposition of the great writer, always content with himself, discontented with others. The crowd of royalists, far from showing themselves sceptical and morose, as he was, was about to attend the ceremony of the morrow in a wholly different mood. It had long been ready with its enthusiasm, and awaited with impatience mingled with respect the dawn of the day about to rise.
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