The
Queen's Coronation was deferred till June 1838. It
would be tedious to dwell on the splendour of the
ceremonial. Perhaps the most readable, and not the
least truthful, account has been preserved in one of
Barham's Ingoldsby Legends—Mr. Barney Maguire's Ac
count of the Coronation, set to the tune of The
Groves of Blarney, and beginning-
" Och!
the Coronation, what celebration For emulation with
it can compare ?
When
to Westminster the Royal Spinster
And
the Duke of Leinster all in order did repair.
'Twas
there ye'd see the new Polishemen,
Making a skrimmage at half afther four;
And
the Lords and Ladies, and the Miss O'Gradys
All
standing round before the Abbey door."
Two
personages in the procession, who had met under far
different circumstances in earlier years, met with a
tremendous ovation wherever they moved. One of these
was the Duke of Wellington—our Great Duke - and the
other was the veteran Duke of Dalmatia - the
puissant Marechal Soult of the Peninsula and
Waterloo - once the redoubtable foe of England. Mr.
Justin McCarthy has suggested that "the cheers of a
London crowd on the day of the Queen's coronation
did something genuine and substantial to restore the
good feeling between this country and France, and
efface the bitter memories of "Waterloo". On
the other hand, the anti-monarchical party in France
attributed the popular reception of Soult in London
to the prevalence of sympathy with Republican of
views. Certain it is that when, in later years,
Soult championed the English alliance in the French
Assembly he referred with feeling to his reception
at Queen Victoria's coronation : " I fought the
English," he said, " down to Toulouse, when I fired
the last shot in defence of national independence ;
in the meantime I have been in London, and France
knows how I was received. The English themselves
cried Vive Soult ! ' They cried Soult - for ever I '
" One may formulate rules of diplomacy and
international courtesy, but who shall weigh the
effect of sympathy between a generous people and a
former gallant foe ?
LA
BELLE ALLIANCE.
This
sketch represents Marshal Soult meeting his old
antagonist, Lord Hill, at the Duke of Wellington's.
"At last," he says, "I meet you, I, who have run
after you so long I" "La Belle Alliance" is well
known as the name of a particular spot, which was
one of the points of attack at the Battle of
Waterloo.