"Behind Charles X. there knelt his Grand Chamberlain, Prince
Talleyrand, covered with gleaming embroideries, orders, and cordons. It
was the ecclesiastical dignitary whom Paris had beheld celebrating the
Mass of the Federation on the Champ-de-Mars, the wedded prelate who, as
Minister of the Directory, had for some years observed as a national
festival the anniversary of this same execution, now the subject of so
many tears."
Religious people rejoiced at the ceremony that was celebrated; but the
Voltairians and the enemies of royalty complained bitterly at the sight
of the quays, the streets, the squares of the capital furrowed by long
files of priests, chanting psalms and litanies, dragging devout in
their suite the King, the two Chambers, the judiciary, the
administration, and the army. Yet was it not just that Charles X.
should cause an expiatory ceremony to be celebrated at the place where
his unfortunate brother had been guillotined? Was not that for a pious
sovereign the accomplishment of a sacred duty? It matters not; there
were those who reproached him with this homage to the most memorable of
misfortunes. They would have forbidden to Charles X. the memory of
Louis XVI. Yet a king could hardly be asked to have the sentiments of a
conventionnel, of a regicide. In their systematic and bitter
opposition, the adversaries of the Restoration imputed to the royal
family as a crime its very virtues and its piety.
Charles X. was not unaware of this half-expressed hostility. That
evening he wrote to M. Villele, President of the Council of Ministers:--
"In general I have been content with the ceremony and the appearance of
the people; but I wish to know the whole truth, and I charge you to see
M. Delavau, and to know from him if the reality corresponds to
appearances, if there was any talk against the government and the
clergy. I wish to know all, and I trust to you to leave me in ignorance
of nothing."
M. de Villele was not a flatterer. He responded discreetly, but without
concealing the truth:--
"The aspect of the people," he wrote, "permitted the thoughts agitating
its spirit to be recognized. We were following the King at a slight
distance and could judge very well of it. It was easy to read in all
eyes that the people were hurt at seeing the King humbly following the
priests. There was in that not so much irreligion as jealousy and
animosity toward the role played by the clergy."
It might have been asked, in these circumstances, whether the
criticisms of the opposition were just. If a ceremony was to be
observed, such, as the laying and blessing the corner-stone of an
expiatory monument, it must be religious. If it were religious, was not
the presence of the clergy in large numbers natural?
At heart, there was something noble and touching in the thought of
Charles X., and the true royalists sincerely respected it. Prom the
monarchical point of view, a monument to Louis XVI. had much more
raison d'etre than the obelisk since erected in its place, which
represents nothing, and has, moreover, the inconvenience of obstructing
the fine perspective of the Champs Elysees and the Tuileries. But there
were two camps in France, and these processions, expiations, prayers,
which, according to the royalist journals, opened a new era of
sanctity, glory, and virtue, exasperated the Voltairians. The
opposition determined to make of the King's piety a weapon against
royalty.
And yet, we repeat, this piety had nothing about it not worthy of
respect. As the Abbe Vedrenne remarks in his Vie de Charles X., this
Prince "had a perfect understanding of the duties and convenances of
his rank, never refused his presence at fetes where it was desirable,
never seemed to blame or fear what a sensible indulgence did not
condemn; he loved the charm of society, and increased it by his
kindliness, but he was not dazzled by it. He remained to the end the
most amiable prince in Europe, but he was also the severest. A
surprising thing in a convert, his religion was always full of true
charity for others. He excused those who neglected their Christian
duties, remembering his delay in practising his own, without ever
compromising his own beliefs. He sincerely respected the good faith of
those who did not share them. This faith, this piety--a legacy from
love--which he guarded so faithfully, was the consolation of his long
misfortunes and the principle of his unchanging serenity. It banished
even the idea of hatred from his heart. Never did any one forgive as he
did."
It must not be forgotten that the pamphleteers and song-writers of the
Restoration, violent, unjust, and even cruel as they were toward
Charles X., never breathed an insinuation against the purity of his
morals. His life was not less exemplary than that of his son, the
Dauphin, or of his niece and daughter-in-law, the Orphan of the Temple.
Despite the great piety of the sovereign, the court was not melancholy
or morose. Charles X. had a foundation of benevolence and gaiety to his
character. He was not surprised to see committed about him the gentle
trespasses of love, of which he had been himself guilty in youth, and
he had become--the very ideal of wisdom--severe for himself, indulgent
for others.