"
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.
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