The coronation of Charles X of France | EUROtoday

VWas we fascinated by the current coronation of Charles III of England? You would have been surprised by that of Charles X, who spent tens of millions in May 1825, in Reims, to hit the spirits and reconnect with the nice royal ceremonies of yesteryear.

When the Count of Artois involves energy, he succeeds his personal brother Louis XVIII, who, too sick, couldn’t set up a ceremony worthy of the identify to have a good time the return of the Bourbons to the throne of France – the 2 brothers of Louis XVI will certainly reign successively after the autumn of Napoleon I^er.

Charles X desires to place an finish: he obtains 6 million francs from the Parliament to prepare his coronation. In actuality, bills will climb to 10 million francs because the king needs to reconnect with the splendor of the previous regime – France has not recognized a coronation since that of Louis XVI, fifty years earlier.

Taps, tailors, embroiderers, silky, gilders, all luxurious trades are mobilized for a number of months and within the biggest secrecy: Charles X desires to make a stroke of com and doesn’t disclose something till D -Day, to higher shock his individuals.

4.5 tonnes of wooden and gold

In Reims, we renovate the archiepiscopal residence as shortly as doable, the Palais du Tau, to welcome the King because the custom desires, by making a six -room condo in a row – a dozen calorifers work day and evening to dry the plasters.

You additionally should construct a room of the guards, a lined gallery to hitch the cathedral, prepare residences for the royal suite, redecorate the festive room within the troubadour fashion … The cathedral is altered, the stands are put in for the 700 company and an enormous throne within the roodle surmounted by a floral velvet ball.

Great care can also be taken to the official procession with the development of a number of triumph arcs in canvases and woods that the official vehicles should be crossed and the monumental coach, which has nothing to envy to the well-known Gold State Coach of the British.

Four and a half tonnes of wooden and gold, pulled by eight horses, began by the decorator Charles Percier beneath Louis XVIII then completed shortly for Charles X, it’s nonetheless situated on the Palais de Versailles, in a model modified by Napoleon III. The sedan symbolizes the apotheosis of royalism with a superposition of abundance horns, branches of olive tree, fleur -de -lis, conflict trophies, historic breastplates and ladies’s our bodies …

Royal feast and passage of the troops

It was on this luxurious crew that Charles X entered Reims on May 28, 1825, after a stage in Compiègne, surrounded by his cavalry squadrons and his princely suite. The subsequent day, at daybreak, the group and the company crowd in direction of the cathedral in order to not miss something from the present …

The ceremony was shortened – three and a half hours all the identical – however the principle levels of the ceremony are revered by magnifying the royal insignia that will need to have gathered, just like the well-known sword of Charlemagne (which truly dates from the XI^e century) and the scepter of Charles V …

The reliquary of the holy bulb, destroyed beneath the revolution, had been recreated in 1820 utilizing the final stays of the sacred balm recovered by fervent parishioners. On the opposite hand, the hand of justice and the crown of Charlemagne had been redone by the goldsmiths of Napoleon, which propaganda clearly forgot to specify …

The ceremonies are usually not over: Royal feast, ceremony of the order of the Holy Spirit, then that of contact of the nuts, passage of the troops in evaluation, supply of decorations … On June 6, the King entered Paris into his gold coach to hitch Notre-Dame and attend the Te deum.

An influence too topic to the clergy

The festivals comply with each other for 2 days with balls, fireworks on the Champs-Élysées, jousts on the Seine, free exhibits in theaters and, to the delight of Parisians, free fountain installations of wine within the streets …

The king anticipated to be acclaimed all over the place: he was in Reims, a lot much less in Paris. The French, who crossed the Revolution and the Empire, didn’t at all times perceive the symbols and the traditional rites of the royal coronation.

They applauded when he noticed Charles X take oath to the constitution beneath the vaults of Reims, however most didn’t digest the lengthy prostration of the king earlier than the prelates of France through the ceremony, seeing an influence too topic to the clergy …

If the monarchist newspapers greet a ceremony deemed historic, the liberal press makes its criticisms heard, notably pointing the little fervor of the Parisians … with out forgetting the songwriters, like Béranger, who later composed a fierce satire which brought on a sensation: “Shared old tin/this king, a great tax/march swallowing surrounded by his faithful/who all, in less time/have followed rebellious flags. »»

In the end, the coronation did not bring Charles X the political base he wanted. Five years later, he lost power by deciding to dissolve the room and remove, with a feather, press freedom. Paris rises, the barricades of “three superb” take away his reign, giving way to his cousin, the cunning Duke of Orleans, who became King Louis-Philippe. Who, prudent, has the wisdom to give up the coronation …

To uncover



The kangaroo of the day

Answer

Read :: The coronation of Charles X, the final lights of the Bourbonsfrom Bernard Degout (Perrin, April 2025, 352 pages, 24 euros).
To have : “The last coronation”, exhibition from April 11 to July 20, nationwide furnishings, 42, avenue des Gobelins, Paris 13^e.