The Duchess of Berry took part in the solemn entry into Paris made by
Charles X., Monday, 27th September, 1824. She was in the same carriage
as the Dauphiness and the Duchess and Mademoiselle of Orleans. The King
left the Chateau of Saint Cloud at half-past eleven in the morning,
passed through the Bois de Boulogne, and mounted his horse at the
Barriere de l'Etoile. There he was saluted by a salvo of one hundred
and one guns, and the Count de Chambral, Prefect of the Seine,
surrounded by the members of the Municipal Council, presented to him
the keys of the city. Charles X. replied to the address of the Prefect:
"I deposit these keys with you, because I cannot place them in more
faithful hands. Guard them, gentlemen. It is with a profound feeling of
pain and joy that I enter within these walls, in the midst of my good
people,--of joy because I well know that I shall employ and consecrate
all my days to the very last, to assure and consolidate their
happiness." Accompanied by the princes and princesses of his family and
by a magnificent staff, the sovereign descended the Champs-Elysees to
the Avenue of Marigny, followed that avenue, and entered the Rue du
Faubourg Saint-Honore, before the Palace of the Elysee. At this moment,
the weather, which had been cold and sombre, brightened, and the rain,
which had been falling for a long time, ceased. The King heard two
child-voices crying joyously, "Bon-papa." It was the little Duke of
Bordeaux and his sister at a window of an entresol of the Elysee which
looked out upon the street. On perceiving his two grandchildren,
Charles X. could not resist the impulse to approach them. He left the
ranks of the cortege, to the despair of the grand-master of ceremonies.
The horse reared. A sergeant-de-ville seized him by the bit. Listen to
Madame de Gontaut: "I was frightened, and cried out. The King scolded
me for it afterward. I confessed my weakness; to fall at the first step
in Paris would have seemed an ill omen. The King subdued his fretful
horse, said a few tender words to the children, raised his hat
gracefully to the ladies surrounding us. A thousand voices shouted:
Vive le Roi! The grand-master was reassured, the horse was quieted, and
the King resumed his place. The carriage of the princes and princesses
passing at that moment, the little princes saw them--it was an added
joy."
The cortege followed this route: the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, the
boulevards to the Rue Saint-Denis, the Rue Saint-Denis, the Place du
Chatelet, the Pont au Change, the Rue de la Bailer, the Marche-Neuf,
the Rue Neuve-Notre-Dame, the Parvis. At every moment the King reined
in his superb Arab horse to regard more at ease the delighted crowd. He
smiled and saluted with an air of kindness and a grace that produced
the best impression. Charles X. was an excellent horseman; he presented
the figure and air of a young man. The contrast naturally fixed in all
minds, between his vigorous attitude and that of his predecessor, an
infirm and feeble old man, added to the general satisfaction. The
houses were decorated with white flags spangled with fleurs-de-lis.
Triumphal arches were erected along the route of the sovereign. The
streets and boulevards were strewn with flowers. At the sight of the
monarch the happy people redoubled their acclamations. Benjamin
Constant shouted: "Vive le roi!"--"Ah, I have captured you at last,"
smilingly remarked Charles X.
Reaching the Parvis de Notre-Dame, the sovereign, before entering the
Cathedral, paused before the threshold of the Hotel-Dieu. Fifty nuns
presented themselves before him, "Sire," said the Prioress, "you pause
before the house so justly termed the Hotel-Dieu, which has always been
honored with the protection of our kings. We shall never forget, Sire,
that the sick have seen at their bedside the Prince who is today their
King. They know that at this moment your march is arrested by charity.
We shall tell them that the King is concerned for their ills, and it
will be a solace to them. Sire, we offer you our homage, our vows, and
the assurance that we shall always fulfil with zeal our duties to the
sick." Charles X. replied: "I know with what zeal you and these
gentlemen serve the poor. Continue, Mesdames, and you can count on my
benevolence and on my constant protection."
The King was received at the Metropolitan Church by the Archbishop of
Paris at the head of his clergy. The Domine salvum, fac regem, was
intoned and repeated by the deputations of all the authorities and by
the crowd filling the nave, the side-aisles, and the tribunes of the
vast basilica. Then a numerous body of singers sang the Te Deum. On
leaving the church, the King remounted his horse and returned to the
Tuileries, along the quais, to the sound of salvos of artillery and the
acclamations of the crowd. The Duchess of Berry, who had followed the
King through all the ceremonies, entered the Chateau with him, and
immediately addressed to the Governess of the Children of France this
note: "From Saint Cloud to Notre-Dame, from Notre-Dame to the
Tuileries, the King has been accompanied by acclamations, signs of
approval and of love."
Charles X., on Thursday, the 30th September, had to attend a review on
the Champ-de-Mars. The morning of this day, the readers of all the
journals found in them a decree abolishing the censorship and restoring
liberty of the press. The enthusiasm was immense. The Journal de Paris
wrote: "Today all is joy, confidence, hope. The enthusiasm excited by
the new reign would be far too ill at ease under a censorship. None can
be exercised over the public gratitude. It must be allowed full
expansion. Happy is the Council of His Majesty to greet the new King
with an act so worthy of him. It is the banquet of this joyous
accession; for to give liberty to the press is to give free course to
the benedictions merited by Charles X."
The review was superb. After having heard Mass in the chapel of the
Chateau of the Tuileries, the King mounted his horse at half-past
eleven, and, accompanied by the Dauphin, the Duke of Orleans, and the
Duke of Bourbon, proceeded to the Champ-de-Mars. Two caleches followed;
the one was occupied by the Dauphiness, the Duchess of Berry, and the
Duke of Bordeaux in the uniform of a colonel of cuirassiers,--a
four-year old colonel,--the other by the Duchess of Orleans and
Mademoiselle of Orleans, her 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 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.