Page:The coronation of Edward the Seventh - a chapter of European and imperial history.djvu/11



Y the hazard of an untimely malady the Coronation of King Edward VII. took place on an anniversary most notable in the annals of regality.

The date of August 9th, 1902, to which the ceremony was postponed, by reason of the illness of the King, was the hundred and tenth anniversary of the last day of the ancient French monarchy. In the experiences of modern nations it would be hard to find a contrast more impressive than in the circumstances of the two historic days.

On August 9, 1792, the King and Queen of France, besieged in their palace of the Tuileries by their own subjects, were awaiting the tocsin which at midnight they knew was to toll the knell of the monarchy, after eight hundred years of hereditary sway under which France had grown into a great nation. For the institution of royalty there was no hope left, save in the chance of successful foreign intervention. The lives of the sovereigns would be secure only if the alien soldiery in their service could aid their escape from the furious population of the capital, now reinforced by the fierce battalions from Marseilles, which had arrived in Paris, chanting their new revolutionary war-song. We all know how the morrow ended. The Swiss guard massacred, the Tuileries cannonaded, and Louis, no longer 3