Page:Coubertin - France since 1814, 1900.djvu/34

 The French owed their King a grudge for the undignified facility with which he had fallen. They did not reflect that another man would have fallen with still greater facility and rather less dignity.

Very noteworthy are the abrupt changes of opinion which characterise this memorable epoch. France had come to the unanimous conclusion that the Imperial régime was a brilliant and glorious makeshift, but that it had failed to provide a solution of the problem. The Hundred Days were not calculated to modify this impression. Unfortunately they destroyed the certainty which it had been possible to feel a year earlier. In 1814 Louis XVIII. seemed to be the unique heaven-sent sovereign, wrapped in the mysterious power of his principle, the tutelary protector of his country and its liberty. From the moment of his return nobody dreamed that his throne could possibly be overturned. Many documents of the period give this impression of finality ; it was felt not only by the people, always prone to a beautiful simple faith in things, but by the classes educated into scepticism. Memories of the Revolution increased the strength and solidity of the House