Je suis venu de mon pays Pas plus haut qu'une botte,çoisRené Avecque mi, avecque mi, Avecque ma marmotte[253].
That is what a little Savoyard, just arrived at Rheims, sang to me returning from my walk.
"'And what have you come here for?' I asked him.
"'Yes, sir, with-a _mi_, with-a _mi_, with-a my marmot,' he replied, dancing and turning.
"That was not correct: I had come to the coronation without a marmot, and a marmot is a great resource; I had nothing in my box but some old dream or other which no passer-by would have paid a sou-piece to see climb up a stick.
"Louis XVII. and Louis XVIII. were not crowned; Charles X.'s coronation comes immediately after Louis XVI.'s. Charles X. was present at his brother's coronation; he represented the Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror. Under what happy auspices did not Louis XVI. ascend the throne? How popular was he on succeeding Louis XV.! And yet, what did he come to? The present coronation will be, not a coronation, but the representation of a coronation: we shall see Marshal Moncey, an actor in the coronation of Napoleon; that marshal, who formerly celebrated in his army the death of the tyrant Louis XVI., we shall now see brandishing the royal sword at Rheims, in the quality of Count of Flanders or Duke of Aquitaine. Who could be taken in by that parade? I would have wished no pomp to-day: the King on horseback, the church bare, adorned only with its old vaults and its old tombs; the two Chambers present, the oath of fidelity to the Charter pronounced aloud on the Gospels. There you would have the renewal of the Monarchy; they might have recommenced it with liberty and religion: unfortunately they had little love for liberty; if still they had, at least, had the taste for glory!
Ah! que diront là-bas, sons les tombes poudreuses, De tant de vaillants rois les ombres généreuses? Que diront Pharamond, Clodion et Clovis, Nos Pepins, nos Martels, nos Charles, nos Louis, Qui de leur propre sang, à tous périls de guerre, Ont acquis à leurs fils une si belle terre[254]?
"Lastly, has not the new coronation, to which the Pope came to anoint a man as great as the chief of the Second Dynasty[255], in changing the heads, destroyed the effect of the ancient ceremony of our history? The people has been led to believe that a pious rite dedicated no one to the throne, or rendered indifferent the choice of the forehead to which the holy oil was applied. The supernumeraries of Notre-Dame de Paris, figuring likewise in the Cathedral of Rheims, will be nothing more than the necessary characters in a scene that has become vulgar: the advantage will remain with Napoleon, who sends his walking gentlemen to Charles X. The figure of the Emperor dominates everything henceforward. It stands at the bottom of events and ideas: the pages of these lower days to which we have come shrivel up under the glance of his eagles."