The austerity of the May 8 ceremonies, celebrated on the almost deserted Champs-Élysées in Paris, contrasted with the joyfully massed crowds at the foot of Buckingham. Nine million French people watched last Saturday as the Archbishop of Canterbury carefully fixed the crown of Saint Edward on the head of Charles III.
While the archbishop endeavoured, with delicate gestures, to perfectly adjust the ermine border on the royal skull, commentators of all the chains made a point of describing in detail this extraordinary object that "serves" only once or twice a century.