So Charles X. was able to rejoice his subjects with the intelligence that he was to be anointed with the sacred oil of Clovis. The fragments of the old ampulla were introduced into a new one, covered with gold and precious stones, and the precious drops were diluted with others. Particulars of the anointment have already been given in connection with the coronation of Napoleon. At ten o'clock on the morning of the following day, the King mounted a beautiful white horse and rode in the midst of a brilliant retinue, and attended by a troop of hussars, to the hospital of St. Mark. There the chief physician to the royal household awaited him at the head of a band of 121 persons afflicted with scrofula. The King, after offering a short prayer in the hospital chapel, set boldly to his task of curing them. The famous surgeon Dupuytren was not ashamed to hold the heads of some of the patients during the comedy.
Lamartine celebrated the anointment of Charles X. in a cycle of poems (_Chant du sacre_) and Victor Hugo in an enthusiastic ode. But on the occasion of the same memorable event there was also written a little song which led to its author's prosecution and punishment. The song was called _Sacre de Charles le Simple_, and the name of its writer was Béranger.
The tone of Victor Hugo's ode, _Le Sacre de Charles X_, was, as the following verse shows, orthodox, Biblical, and royalist:
Mais trompant des vautours la fureur criminelle, Dieu garda sa colombe au lys abandonné. Elle va sur un Roi poser encor son aile: Ce bonheur à Charles est donné! Charles sera sacré suivant l'ancien usage, Comme Salomon, le Roi sage, Qui goûta les célestes mets, Quand Sadoch et Nathan d'un baume l'arrosèrent, Et, s'approchant de lui, sur le front le baisèrent, En disant: "Qu'il vive à jamais!"
The tone of Béranger's poem was disrespectful in the extreme. He apostrophises the sparrows, which, according to an old custom, had been driven into the church to fly about there, and charges them to guard their liberty better than human beings have guarded theirs:
Français, que Reims a réunis, Criez: Montjoie et Saint-Denis! On a refait la sainte ampoule, Et, comme au temps de nos aïeux, Des passereaux lâchés en foule Dans l'église volent joyeux. D'un joug brisé ces vains présages Font sourir sa majesté. Le peuple s'écrie: Oiseaux, plus que nous soyez sages, Gardez bien, gardez bien votre liberté!