The soldier inside the Dauphin checked the details—guards' positions, crowd density, potential choke points—but the prince in him raised a hand to wave, deliberate, measured. He was already mastering the dual arts of visibility and command.
The cortège moved on, wheels clattering on cobblestones. Ahead stretched the wide boulevards, engineered for precisely such spectacles. Here Paris was at its most theatrical: long avenues lined with trees, façades opening onto spaces where thousands could gather. It was, the Dauphin thought, the perfect parade ground—broad enough to display loyalty, and equally broad enough to reveal dissent.
The crowd thickened. Merchants abandoned their stalls, apprentices clambered up lampposts, women hoisted infants to their shoulders. Shouts rang out: "Vive le Dauphin! Vive le Dauphin!" It was not the mechanical chant of rehearsed homage but an uneven roar, alive with fervor.
Inside the carriage, the boy sat straighter. He raised his hand again, this time more assertively. He allowed himself a smile—controlled, regal, yet warm. His eyes darted like a tactician's, sweeping the masses. He noted where acclamations swelled strongest, where voices dimmed, where a silence pooled like stagnant water.
"There, by the apothecary's shop," he secretly told his guard, catching a pocket of quiet. Suspicion, hesitation, perhaps discontent. He filed it like reconnaissance. "And there, near the wine sellers—the cheers ring louder, hearts more loyal."
Every salute, every wave became both gesture and measurement. The soldier within was confirming intelligence. The prince without was projecting vigor, the very opposite of the whispered rumors that painted him sickly, frail, near death.
His teacher observed him with surprise.The gouverneur des enfants de France, uneasy with commoner crowds, tended to retreat into stiffness. Yet here was his student absorbing their adulation like a natural.
The boulevard swelled with humanity. A baker's apprentice, red-cheeked, sprinted alongside the carriage for several yards, shouting until his voice broke. Women wept openly. Old men removed their caps and made the sign of the cross. The Dauphin acknowledged them all with gestures carefully timed—not too frequent to seem frantic, not too sparse to appear cold. He was, in that moment, a master of the rhythm of appearances.
No royal entry into Paris could omit the cathedral. Notre-Dame rose in solemn majesty, its towers dark against the sky. For centuries, it had been the very heart of France's union between throne and altar. To pass by without homage would have been sacrilege.
The cortège halted. Bells pealed, their sound cascading over the city. The Dauphin descended from the carriage with a composure remarkable for his age. His small hand slipped into his teacher's, and together they crossed the parvis, flanked by clergy in resplendent vestments.
Inside, the air was cool and dim, scented with incense. Candles flickered in endless rows. The nave echoed with murmurs as the Te Deum began. Voices soared upward, filling the vaulted space with sound that seemed to shake the very stones.
The Dauphin bowed his head, kneeling at the prie-dieu prepared for him. His lips moved in prayer, though his mind was calculating. This, he knew, was not simply devotion but optics. A prince seen praying in the cathedral of Paris was more than a boy—it was the image of legitimacy, the living link between God and Crown.
He closed his eyes briefly, recalling past lives where faith had been private, fragmented, sometimes absent. Here, faith was armor. The people wanted a pious heir; he would give them one. Not excessively, not ostentatiously, but with serenity.
As the hymn concluded, he rose with calm assurance. The Archbishop blessed him, and the crowd within erupted into acclamations. Outside, word spread like fire: the Dauphin had prayed at Notre-Dame. For many Parisians, that was proof enough that the monarchy's future was secure. But the opposition wasn't far off.