"
After the sermon, the Archbishop celebrated the Te Deum, to which
Charles X. listened standing. Then after having kissed the altar
and a reliquary in which was a piece of the true cross, the
sovereign returned to his apartments in the Archbishop's palace.
Thus passed the eve of the consecration. The same day M. de
Chateaubriand wrote:--
"Rheims, Saturday, the eve of the consecration. I saw the King
enter. I saw pass the gilded coaches of the monarch who, a little
while ago, had not a horse to mount; I saw rolling by, carriages
full of courtiers who had not known how to defend their master.
This herd went to the church to sing the Te Deum, and I went to
visit a Roman ruin, and to walk alone in an elm grove called the
Bois d'Amour. I heard from afar the jubilation of the bells; I
contemplated the towers of the Cathedral, secular witnesses of
this ceremony always the same and yet so different in history,
time, ideas, morals, usages, and customs. The monarchy perished,
and for a long time the Cathedral was changed to a stable. Does
Charles X., when he sees it again to-day, recall that he saw Louis
XVI. receive anointment in the same place where he in his turn is
to receive it? Will he believe that a consecration shelters him
from misfortune? There is no longer a hand with virtue enough to
cure the king's evil, no ampulla with holy power sufficient to
render kings inviolable.
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