The alternative was to be that, if she insisted upon wearing them, his Majesty would never look upon him again with favourable eyes.
The Count never hesitated, but left Paris, refusing to appear at the ceremony.

The King was in a towering passion, for to lose the presence of this great prince of the blood at a solemnity expressly intended as a demonstration against the designs hatching by the first of all the princes of the blood under patronage of Spain was a severe blow to his pride and a check to his policy.' Yet it was inconceivable that he could at such a moment commit so superfluous and unmeaning a blunder.

He had forced Conde into exile, intrigue with the enemy, and rebellion, by open and audacious efforts to destroy his domestic peace, and now he was willing to alienate one of his most powerful subjects in order to place his bastards on a level with royalty.

While it is sufficiently amusing to contemplate this proposed barter of a chief command in a great army or the lieutenancy-general of a mighty kingdom at the outbreak of a general European war against a bit of embroidery on the court dress of a lady, yet it is impossible not to recognize something ideal and chivalrous from his own point of view in the refusal of Soissons to renounce those emblems of pure and high descent, those haughty lilies of St.Louis, against any bribes of place and pelf however dazzling.
The coronation took place on Thursday, 13th May, with the pomp and glitter becoming great court festivals; the more pompous and glittering the more the monarch's heart was wrapped in gloom.

The representatives of the great powers were conspicuous in the procession; Aerssens, the Dutch ambassador, holding a foremost place.