"Those who will have nothing to do with me, I leave alone."
The Archbishop rejoined:
"But, Sire, M. de Chateaubriand?"
"Oh, him I regret!"
Coronation of Charles X.
The Archbishop asked the King if he might tell me so; the King hesitated, took two or three turns in the room, and replied, "Well, yes, tell him," and the Archbishop forgot to speak to me about it.
At the ceremony of the knights of the Orders, I was kneeling at the King's feet at the moment when M. de Villèle was taking his oath. I exchanged two or three words of politeness with my companion in knighthood[259], with regard to a feather that had come loose from my hat. We left the Sovereign's knees, and all was done. The King, finding a difficulty in removing his gloves to take my hands in his, had said to me, laughing:
"A gloved cat catches no mice."
It was thought that he had spoken to me at length, and the rumour was spread of my return to favour. It is probable that Charles X., thinking that the Archbishop had told me of his good-will towards me, expected a word of thanks from me and was offended at my silence.
Thus have I assisted at the last coronation of the successors of Clovis; I had occasioned it by the pages in which I had asked for the coronation and depicted it in my pamphlet, Le Roi est mort: vive le roi! Not that I had the least faith in the ceremony; but, as everything was lacking to the Legitimacy, it was necessary, to sustain it, to make use of everything, for better or for worse. I recalled Adalbéron's[260] definition: "The coronation of a King of France is, a public interest, not a private matter;" I quoted the admirable prayer set apart for the coronation: