The ambitious spirits of whom
it was composed turned their thoughts toward the rising sun. Peace had
happily fecundated the prodigious resources of the country. Finances,
commerce, agriculture, industry, the fine arts, everything was
prospering. The public revenues steadily increased. The ease with which
riches came inclined all minds toward optimism. The salons had resumed
the most exquisite traditions of courtesy and elegance. It was the
boast that every good side of the ancien regime had been preserved and
every bad one rejected. France was not only respected, she was a la
mode. All Europe regarded her with sympathetic admiration. No one in
1824 could have predicted 1880. The writers least favorable to the
Restoration had borne witness to the general calm, the prevalence of
good will, the perfect accord between the country and the crown. The
early days of the reign of Charles X. were, so to speak, the honeymoon
of the union of the King and France.

III

THE TOMBS OF SAINT-DENIS

The funeral solemnities of Louis XVIII. seemed to the people a mortuary
triumph of Royalty over the Revolution and the Empire. The profanations
of 1793 were expiated. Napoleon was left with the willow of Saint
Helena; the descendant of Saint Louis and of Louis XIV. had the
basilica of his ancestors as a place of sepulture, and the links of
time's chain were again joined. The obsequies of Louis XVIII. suggested
a multitude of reflections. It was the first time since the death of
Louis XV. in 1774, that such a ceremony had taken place. As was said by
the Moniteur:--

"This solemnity, absolutely novel for the greater number of the present
generation, offered an aspect at once mournful and imposing. A monarch
so justly regretted, a king so truly Christian, coming to take his
place among the glorious remains of the martyrs of his race and the
bones of his ancestors,--profaned, scattered by the revolutionary
tempest, but which he had been able again to gather,--was a grave
subject of reflection, a spectacle touching in its purpose and majestic
in the pomp with which it was surrounded."

Through what vicissitudes had passed these royal tombs, to which the
coffin of Louis XVIII. was borne! Read in the work of M. Georges
d'Heylli, Les Tombes royales de Saint-Denis, the story of these
profanations and restorations.

The Moniteur of the 6th of February, 1793, published in its literary
miscellany, a so-called patriotic ode, by the poet Le