"
How many sagacious warnings given by the brave courtier, or,
better, by the faithful friend, during the year 1825, the year of
the coronation: "The good Madame de M-- of the Sacred Heart was
saying the other day: 'We had a King with no limbs, and with a
head; now we have limbs and no head.' It is unheard of, the
trouble taken in certain circles to make out that the King has no
will. The future must give to all a complete refutation; the
future must teach them that the King knows how to distinguish
those that betray from those that serve him." (Report of March 1,
1825). "Does the King wish to run the chances of a complete
overturning by throwing himself into the hands of the ultras? That
would be to fall again under the blows of the Revolution, which
counts on these to push the monarchy into the abyss always held
open at its side."
From 1825, criticism of the King began. He was accused of giving
himself up too much to the pleasures of the chase. The time was
approaching when his enemies would say of him--a cruel play on
words: "He's good for nothing but to hunt," and would translate
the four letters over the doors of houses M. A. C. L. (Maison
Assuree Contre l'Incendie) by this phrase: Mes Amis, Chassons-le.
The 17th of June, 1825, M. de La Rochefoucauld wrote:--
"I must tell all to the King. I have prevented the giving of a
play at the Odeon called Robin des Bois (Robin Hood), because it
is a nickname criminally given by the people to him whom they
accuse of hunting too often, an accusation very unjust in the eyes
of those who know that never did a prince work more than he to
whom allusion is made.
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