e royal guard, which the sovereign was about to review,
made a magnificent appearance. An immense multitude covered the slopes
about the Champ-de-Mars. Charles X. harvested the effect of the liberal
measure that he had first adopted. A thunder of plaudits and cheers
greeted his arrival on the ground. At one moment, when he found
himself, so to speak, tangled in the midst of the crowd, several
lancers of his guard sought to break the circle formed about him by
pushing back the curious with the handles of their lances. "My friends,
no halberds!" the King called to them. This happy phrase, repeated from
group to group, carried the general satisfaction to a climax. A witness
of this military ceremony, the Count of Puymaigre, at that time Prefect
of the Oise, says in his curious Souvenirs:--
"Charles X. appeared to have dissipated all the dangers that for ten
years had menaced his august predecessor.
"On all sides there rose only acclamations of delight in favor of the
new King, who showed himself so popular, and whose gracious countenance
could express only benevolent intentions. I was present, mingling with
the crowd, at the first review by Charles X. on the Champ-de-Mars, and
the remarks were so frankly royalist, that any one would have been
roughly treated by the crowd had he shown other sentiments."
The Duchess of Berry was full of joy. She quivered with pleasure. Very
popular in the army and among the people, as at court and in the city,
she was proud to show her fine child, who already wore the uniform, to
the officers and soldiers. She appeared to all eyes the symbol of
maternal love, and the mothers gazed upon her boy as if he had been
their own. As soon as the little Prince was seen, there was on every
face an expression of kindliness and sympathy. He was the Child of
Paris, the Child of France. Who could have foretold then that this
child, so loved, admired, applauded, would, innocent victim, less than
six years later, be condemned to perpetual exile, and by whom?
Charles X. had won a triumph. Napoleon, at the time of his greatest
glories, at the apogee of his prodigious fortunes, had never had a
warmer greeting from the Parisian people. In the course of the review
the King spoke to all the colonels. On his return to the Tuileries he
went at a slow pace, paused often to receive petitions, handed them to
one of his suite, and responded in the most gracious manner to the
homage of which he was the object. An
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