Everything tended to the unpopularity of the reigning house: the invasion of French territory by the enemy; the disgraceful treaties of 1815; the three years' occupation which had followed the second restoration of the Bourbons; the reactionary movements in the South; the assassination of Ramel at Toulouse, and the Brune assassination at Avignon; Murat, who was always popular, in spite of his stupidity and his treachery, shot at Pizzo: the proscriptions of 1816; defections, disgraceful deeds, shameful bargains, came to light daily; the verses of Émile Debraux, the songs of Béranger, the _Messéniennes_ of Casimir Delavigne and the _tabatières à la charte_, the Voltaire-Touquets and Rousseaus of all kinds, unpublished rhymes of the type I have quoted; anecdotes, true or false, attributed to the Duc de Berry, in which the ancient glories of the Empire were always sacrificed to some youthful aristocratic ambition; all, down to the king with his black gaiters, his blue coat with gilt buttons, his general's epaulettes and the little tail of his wig,--all tended, I say, to depreciate the ruling power--or rather, worse still, to make it absurd. _Vêpres siciliennes_ was played at the Odéon on 23 November 1819 with overwhelming success. It would be difficult to explain why, to anyone who has read the piece dispassionately. Why did a crowd wait outside the doors of the Odéon from three o'clock? Why was that splendid building crowded to suffocation, instead of there being, as usual, plenty of room for everyone? Just to hear four lines thought to contain an allusion to the political encroachments in which the king's favourite minister was said to indulge. These are the four lines. They seemed innocent enough on the face of them:-- "De quel droit un ministre, avec impunity, Ose-t-il attenter à notre liberté? Se reposant sur vous des droits du diadème, Le roi vous a-t-il fait plus roi qu'il n'est lui-même?" All the same, these four lines roused thunders of applause and rounds of cheering. And then one heard on every side the concert of admiration which all the Liberal papers sounded in praise of the patriotic young poet. The whole party petted him, praised him, exalted him. Some time after the _Vêpres siciliennes_ had been played at the Odéon, the Théâtre-Français, on 5 November 1819, put _Louis IX._ on the stage. This was the Royalist reply which the leading theatre gave to the Nationalist tragedy at the Odéon. At that period Ancelot and Casimir Delavigne were about equally celebrated and, in the eyes of impartial critics, _Louis IX._ was as good as _Vêpres siciliennes._ But all the popularity, all the applause, all the triumph went to the Liberal poet. It was as though the nation were breathing again, after its suspension of animation from '93 onward, as though it were urging the public spirit to take the path of liberty.