The last few coronations had brought ill-fortune in their train. It will be remembered that, at Reims, Louis XVI. had quickly removed the crown from his head.
"What is the matter, sire?" asked the archbishop.
"That crown hurts me," replied Louis XVI. And, twenty years later, he died upon the scaffold.
Napoleon wished to be crowned by a higher official than an archbishop; he wished to have a pope, and had sent for Pius VII. to come from the Vatican at Rome to Notre-Dame at Paris.
"Il fallut presqu'un Dieu pour consacrer cet homme!
Le prêtre, monarque de Rome,
Vint sacrer son front menaçant,
Car sans doute, en secret effrayé de lui-même,
Il voulut recevoir son sanglant diadème
Des mains d'où le pardon descend!"
Fifteen years later, Napoleon died at St. Helena! And now it was the turn of Charles X.
Every sovereign in Christendom had been informed of the solemn celebration, and sent their ambassadors extraordinary. Austria was represented by Prince Esterhazy; Spain by the Duke of Villa-Hermosa; Great Britain by the Duke of Northumberland; Prussia by General de Zastrow; and Russia by Prince Volkonski.
The king and the dauphin left the Tuileries at half-past eleven on the morning of 24 May, and set out for Compiègne. All went well as far as Fismes; but an accident augured ill to the king, whose reign was only to last six years, and to end in his exile. As they descended at Fismes, the batteries of the Royal Guard, which were mounted in a dingle to the left of the road, fired a salute to greet the king. The detonation and its echo were terrible, and at the noise of the firing the horses attached to the carriage containing the Ducs d'Aumont and de Damas, and the Counts de Cossé and Curial, ran away; the carriage was overturned and smashed to bits on the causeway. Two out of the four occupants of the carriage were seriously injured—MM. the Duc de Damas and Count Curial; the latter's case was worst, he had his collar-bone broken. Had it not been for the coachman's strength and presence of mind, the king himself would not have escaped a similar accident. His horses bolted; but the coachman had the sense not to try to stop them, and used all his efforts to keep them in the centre of the roadway; and after ten minutes' unrestrained career they calmed down.
At the village of Tinqueux the king found the Duc d'Orléans and the Duc de Bourbon awaiting him. The rain, which had never stopped pouring all morning, ceased, and the sun, which had not hitherto shown itself, now shone forth brilliantly. The king, M. le Dauphin, M. le Duc d'Orléans and M. le Duc de Bourbon entered the coronation coach, and in the language of the Report of the Coronation, "the whole of the way to Reims was one arc de triomphe."
After the coronation service, Charles X. signed the amnesty granted to men who had deserted from the navy and to political offenders. It was this amnesty that brought Carrel back to France. Thirteen years later, Charles X. died at Goritz.