The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X | Page 6

his rights to the throne and to your love; he is no longer obliged to depict his person, to inform you how many members of his family still exist. You know him, this Bourbon, the first to come, after our disaster, worthy herald of old France, to cast himself, a branch of lilies in his hand, between you and Europe. Your eyes rest with love and pleasure on this Prince, who in the ripeness of years has preserved the charm and elegance of his youth, and who now, adorned with the diadem, still is but ONE FRENCHMAN THE MORE IN THE MIDST OF YOU. You repeat with emotion so many happy mots dropped by this new monarch, who from the loyalty of his heart draws the grace of happy speech. What one of us would not confide to him his life, his fortune, his honor? The man whom we should all wish as a friend, we have as King. Ah! Let us try to make him forget the sacrifices of his life! May the crown weigh lightly on the white head of this Christian Knight! Pious as Saint Louis, affable, compassionate, and just as Louis XII., courtly as Francis I., frank as Henry IV., may he be happy with all the happiness he has missed in his long past! May the throne where so many monarchs have encountered tempests, be for him a place of repose! Devoted subjects, let us crowd to the feet of our well-loved sovereign, let us recognize in him the model of honor, the living principle of our laws, the soul of our monarchical society; let us bless a guardian heredity, and may legitimacy without pangs give birth to a new King! Let our soldiers cover with their flags the father of the Duke of Angouleme. May watchful Europe, may the factions, if such there be still, see in the accord of all Frenchmen, in the union of the people and the army, the pledge of our strength and of the peace of the world!" The author of the Genie du Christianisme thus closed his prose dithyramb: "May God grant to Louis XVIII. the crown immortal of Saint Louis! May God bless the mortal crown of Saint Louis on the head of Charles X.!"
In this chant in honor of the King and of royalty, M. de Chateaubriand did not forget the Duke and Duchess of Angouleme, nor the Duchess of Berry and the Duke of Bordeaux. "Let us salute," he said, "the Dauphin and Dauphiness, names that bind the past to the future, calling up touching and noble memories, indicating the own son and the successor of the monarch, names under which we find the liberator of Spain and the daughter of Louis XVI. The Child of Europe, the new Henry, thus makes one step toward the throne of his ancestor, and his young mother guides him to the throne that she might have ascended."
Happy in the ease with which the change in the reign had taken place, and seeing the unanimous manifestations of devotion and enthusiasm by which the throne was surrounded, the Duchess of Berry regarded the future with entire confidence. Inclined by nature to optimism, the young and amiable Princess believed herself specially protected by Providence, and would have considered as a sort of impiety anything else than absolute faith in the duration of the monarchy and in respect for the rights of her son. Had any one of the court expressed the slightest doubt as to the future destiny of the CHILD OF MIRACLE, he would have been looked upon as an alarmist or a coward. The royalists were simple enough to believe that, thanks to this child, the era of revolutions was forever closed. They said to themselves that French royalty, like British royalty, would have its Whigs and its Tories, but that it was forever rid of Republicans and Imperialists. At the accession of Charles X. the word Republican, become a synonym of Jacobin, awoke only memories of the guillotine and the "Terror." A moderate republic seemed but a chimera; only that of Robespierre and Marat was thought of. The eagle was no longer mentioned; and as to the eaglet, he was a prisoner at Vienna. What chance of reigning had the Duke of Reichstadt, that child of thirteen, condemned by all the Powers of Europe? By what means could he mount the throne? Who would be regent in his name? A Bonaparte? The forgetful Marie Louise? Such hypotheses were relegated to the domain of pure fantasy. Apart from a few fanatical old soldiers who persisted in saying that Napoleon was not dead, no one, in 1824, believed in the resurrection of the Empire. As for Orleanism, it was as yet a myth. The Duke of Orleans himself was not