Alas, how swiftly things fade away! Where are the three brothers whom I have seen reign in succession? Louis XVIII. is at Saint-Denis, with the mutilated relics of Louis XVI.; Charles X. has just been laid, at Gorlitz, in a coffin locked with three keys.
The remains of that King, falling from on high, startled his ancestors; they turned in their sepulchres; drawing closer together, they said:
"Let us make room; here is the last of our number."
Bonaparte did not make so much noise on entering eternal life; the old dead did not wake for the emperor of the new dead. They did not know him.
The French Monarchy connects the Ancient World with the Modern World. Augustulus[386] laid down the diadem in 476. Five years later, in 481, the first dynasty of our kings, in the person of Clovis, was reigning over the Gauls.
Charlemagne, when associating Louis the Débonnaire with himself on the throne, said to him:
"Son dear to God, my years are hastening, even my old age escapes me; the time of my death is drawing nigh. The land of the Franks beheld my birth: Christ accorded me that honour. First among the Franks, I have obtained the name of Cæsar and transferred to the Empire of the Franks the Empire of the House of Romulus."
Under Hugh, with the Third Dynasty, the Elective Monarchy became hereditary. Hereditary right gave birth to legitimacy, or permanence, or duration.
The Christian Empire of the French must be placed between the baptismal fonts of Clovis and the scaffold of Louis XVI. The same religion stood at either barrier:
"Gentle Sicamber, bow thy neck, worship what thou hast burnt, burn what thou hast worshipped," said the priest who administered the baptism of water to Clovis.