ower sufficient to render kings
inviolable."

Such was the disposition of the great writer, always content with
himself, discontented with others. The crowd of royalists, far from
showing themselves sceptical and morose, as he was, was about to attend
the ceremony of the morrow in a wholly different mood. It had long been
ready with its enthusiasm, and awaited with impatience mingled with
respect the dawn of the day about to rise.

XIV

THE CORONATION

Sunday, the 29th of May, 1825, the city of Rheims presented, even
before sunrise, an extraordinary animation. From four o'clock in the
morning vehicles were circulating in the streets, and an hour after
people with tickets were directing their steps toward the Cathedral,
the men in uniform or court dress, the women in full dress. The sky was
clear and the weather cool.

Let us listen to an eye-witness, the Count d'Haussonville, the future
member of the French Academy:--

"Need I say that the competition had been ardent among women of the
highest rank to obtain access to the galleries of the Cathedral, which,
not having been reserved for the dignitaries, could receive a small
number of happy chosen ones? Such was the eagerness of this feminine
battalion to mount to the assault of the places whence they could see
and be seen, that at six o'clock in the morning when I presented myself
at the Gothic porch built of wood before the Cathedral, I found them
already there and under arms. They were in court dress, with trains,
all wearing, according to etiquette, uniform coiffures of lace passed
through the hair (what they called barbes), and which fell about their
necks and shoulders, conscientiously decolletes. For a cool May morning
it was rather a light costume; they were shivering with cold. In vain
they showed their tickets, and recited, in order to gain entrance,
their titles and their rank; the grenadier of the royal guard, charged
with maintaining order until the hour of the opening of the doors,
marched unmoved before these pretty beggars, among whom I remember to
have remarked the Countess of Choiseul, her sister, the Marchioness of
Crillon, the Countess of Bourbon-Bosset, etc. He had his orders from
his chief to let no one enter, and no one did."

Finally the doors were opened. At a quarter after six all the galleries
were filled. The foreign sovereigns were represented by especial
ambassadors: the King of Spain by the Duke of Villa-Hermosa, the
Empero