“The doors of the salon were opened.  Monsieur dared not approach; I was near the dying woman and held her hand; it was trembling.  She perceived Monsieur.  He was about to rush toward her.  ’Come no nearer,’ said the Abbe, in a firm voice.  Monsieur did not venture to cross the threshold.  The agitation redoubled; the agony increased.  She raised her hands to heaven, and said:—­

“‘One favor, Monseigneur, one favor—­live for God, all for God.’

“He fell upon his knees, and said:  ‘I swear it, God!’ She said again, ‘All for God!’ Her head fell on my shoulder; this last word was her last breath:  she was no more.  Monsieur raised his arms to heaven, uttered a horrible cry:  the door was closed.”

The Count d’Artois was then but forty-five, but from that day he never gave occasion for the least scandal, and led an exemplary life.  As Louis XIV. had held in profound esteem the courageous prelates who adjured him to break with his mistresses, Charles X. was attached to the truly Christian priest who had converted him by the death-bed of the Viscountess of Polastron.  The Abbe de Latil, the obscure ecclesiastic of the Emigration, became, under the Restoration, the Archbishop of Rheims and Cardinal.  It was not without profound emotion that the very Christian King saw himself consecrated by the priest who twenty-two years before had caused him to return to virtue.  This memory was imposed on the mind and heart of the monarch, and under the vault of the ancient Cathedral, he certainly thought of Madame de Polastron, as of a good angel, who, from the height of heaven, watched over him, and who, by her prayers, had aided him to traverse so many trials, to reach the religious triumph of the coronation.

Charles X. was happy then.  Profoundly sincere in his ardent desire to make France happy, he believed himself at one with God and with his people, and rejoiced in that supreme good, so often wanting to sovereigns,—­peace of heart.  Could he be reproached for having taken the ceremony of his coronation seriously?  A king who does not believe in his royalty is no more to be respected than a priest who does not believe in his religion.  Charles X. was convinced, as the Archbishop of Rheims had said in his letter of 29th May, 1825, that kings exercise over their subjects the power of God Himself, and that they have that sacred majesty, upon which, in the fine expression of Bossuet, God, for the good of things human, causes to shine a portion of the splendor of divine majesty.

This disposition of mind in Charles X. fortified his piety, so that, at the time of the jubilee of 1826, he seized eagerly the opportunity to affirm his religious faith, and to return thanks to the God of his fathers, who at this epoch of his life was loading him with favors.