Today is Ascension Day, which is a cause for celebrationin itself. This year it falls on May 29th, which is, of course, Oak Apple Day, the celebration of the Restoration of King Charles II to the thrones of the British Isles in 1660, and also a cause for celebration. It is also the two hundredth anniversary of the Coronation of another King with the same name, King Charles X of France, in 1825 at Rheims.
This was perhaps the ultimate celebration of France’s own Restoration. The last Royal Coronation had been fifty years earlier, that of the new King’s elder brother King Louis XVI. On that occasion Charles aged.18, was present in the cathedral as Count of Artois and a Peer of France. What would have been unimaginable that celebration where the events after 1789 and the fate of the Monarchy and several members of the Royal Family.
The events of 1814-15 restored the Bourbons to the throne in the person of the other royal brother King Louis XVIII. Although often portrayed in the robes of state associated with the coronation ceremony due to his increasing disability the ponderous but politically cautious King Louis did not put himself through the physical ordeal of the Sacre at Rheims. On his death. In 1824 his successor King Charles, more overt in his fidelity to tradition and a still physically active and indeed debonair 68 year old m, decided on having a traditional coronation at Rheims, with some modest adaptations to the ritual. Unlike the late King he had a son who was Dauphin, married, childlessly, to the daughter of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, but with the widow of the new King’s other son, murdered by. Bonapartist, in 1820 and their son, the future King Henri V, The future looked secure.
The early nineteenth century was an age of opulence for those in the social and political elites. When in 1804 Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of the French he organised a lavish coronation for himself and Josephine, complete with a captive Pope Pius VII, in Notre Dame in Paris. The lavishness of that occasion may well have influenced the splendour King George IV created for his own coronation in 1821 at Westminster with an extensive creation of new uniforms, and there had also been in 1818 the two coronations as King of Sweden and then as King of Norway of the former Marshal Bernadotte as King Carl XIV Johan and King Karl III Johan respectively. A splendid coronation at Rheims with the traditional pageantry would demonstrate that the Restoration was complete. So, on this day two centuries ago, King Charles X was anointed using what survived of the Sainte Ampoule and crowned with a new diamond fleur de lys crown in the tradition mal place of the crowning of Kings of France. He was, I think, the only King to receive the homage of the Dauphin - a part of the ceremony immortalised in a painting - before leaving for the traditional banquet in the neighbouring Archiepiscopal Palace of Tau, the investiture the following day of new Knights of the Sainte Esprit and the custom of Touching for the King’s Evil.
Wikipedia has an illustrated account of the celebrations at Coronation of Charles X of France
Alas events in 1830 and thereafter mean this was not a ceremony that has been repeated, but many of the items used in terms of mantles and uniforms do survive at the Palace of Tau or at st Denis and they are on display at a major exhibition in Paris this summer. The carriage made to take the King to and from Rheims was slightly repurposed by Napolean III with his heraldry for the baptism of the Prince Imperial and can usually be seen in the carriage museum, the Gallerie des Carosses, at Versailles. If you visit Alnwick Castle there you can see the coach especially made for the Duke of Northumberland to attend the ceremony as the official representative of King George IV.
The 1825 Coronation is one of those historic events which one really, really, wishes one could have been present at.
The Palace of Tau as prepared for the Coronation has been digitally reconstructed at
L'appartement du roi au Palais du Tau pour le sacre de Charles X - 28 mai 1825
The Coronation itself has been similarly recreated at Sacre de Charles X - 29 mai 1825 - cathédrale de Reims
The restoration of the coach can be seen at
La restauration du carrosse du sacre de Charles X
Which just leaves me to shout Vive le Roi!
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