"
The fiercest adversaries of Charles X. never denied the attraction
emanating from his whole personality, the chief secret of which
was kindliness. In his constant desire to charm every one that
approached him, he had a certain something like feminine coquetry.
The Count of Puymaigre, who, being the Prefect of the Oise, saw
him often at the Chateau of Compiegne, says:--
"If the imposing tone of Louis XVIII. intimidated, it was not so
with Charles X.; there was rather danger of forgetting, pacing the
room with him, that one was talking with a king."
Yet, whatever may be asserted, the new monarch never dreamed of
restoring the old regime. We do not believe that for a single
instant he had the insensate idea of putting things back to where
they were before 1789. His favorite minister, M. de Villele, was
not one of the great nobles, and the men who were to take the
chief parts in the consecration were of plebeian origin. The
impartial historian of the Restoration, M. de Viel-Castel,
remarked it:--
"Charles X. by this fact alone, that for three years he had
actively shared in affairs and saw the difficulty of them better,
by the fact that he was no longer exasperated by the heat of the
struggle and by impatience at the political nullity to which
events had so long condemned him, had laid aside a part of his
former exaggeration. In the lively satisfaction he felt in
entering at last, at the age of sixty-seven, upon the enjoyment of
the supreme power by the perspective of which his imagination had
been so long haunted, he was disposed to neglect nothing to
capture public favor, and thus gain the chance to realize the
dreams of his life.
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