As Louis XIV. had held in profound esteem the courageous
prelates who adjured him to break with his mistresses, Charles X.
was attached to the truly Christian priest who had converted him
by the death-bed of the Viscountess of Polastron. The Abbe de
Latil, the obscure ecclesiastic of the Emigration, became, under
the Restoration, the Archbishop of Rheims and Cardinal. It was not
without profound emotion that the very Christian King saw himself
consecrated by the priest who twenty-two years before had caused
him to return to virtue. This memory was imposed on the mind and
heart of the monarch, and under the vault of the ancient
Cathedral, he certainly thought of Madame de Polastron, as of a
good angel, who, from the height of heaven, watched over him, and
who, by her prayers, had aided him to traverse so many trials, to
reach the religious triumph of the coronation.
Charles X. was happy then. Profoundly sincere in his ardent desire
to make France happy, he believed himself at one with God and with
his people, and rejoiced in that supreme good, so often wanting to
sovereigns,--peace of heart. Could he be reproached for having
taken the ceremony of his coronation seriously? A king who does
not believe in his royalty is no more to be respected than a
priest who does not believe in his religion. Charles X. was
convinced, as the Archbishop of Rheims had said in his letter of
29th May, 1825, that kings exercise over their subjects the power
of God Himself, and that they have that sacred majesty, upon
which, in the fine expression of Bossuet, God, for the good of
things human, causes to shine a portion of the splendor of divine
majesty.
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