Can he believe that a coronation ceremony will keep him safe from all misfortune? There is no longer any hand virtuous enough to cure scrofula, or any holy phial beneficial enough to render kings inviolable.

Charles X, born this day in 1757, was the king of France (1824–30) whose reign dramatized the Bourbons’ failure to reconcile monarchy by divine right with the spirit of democracy prevalent after the French Revolution.