Volume II - Chapiter 6
DECEMBER 2 1804
NAPOLEON CROWNED
IN NOTRE-DAME
The Empire, as I saw it, was only the official establishment of the Republican doctrine; it consolidated the reforms and the work of the "Assemblée constituante"; it turned the old French monarchy into a young monarchy that was full of grandeur and which had a future.
(Napoleon to Montholon, at St-Helena)
The results speak for themselves: 3,572,329 votes "For" and 2,569
"Against."
There was no ambiguity in the response of the French people to the
plebiscite on the question of hereditary succession for the Empire. The Senate
accordingly enshrined the hereditary principle as a fundamental structure of
the state.
The reaction of the Vendée region was perhaps most
representative of the relief the country felt at the restoration of civil
peace; previously Royalist in its sympathies, it was
near unanimous in its support of the man who had brought an end to the
fratricidal conflict.
The voters united to honour, not their
political institutions, but the man who, in five years, had raised France from
its moribund state and brought it unprecedented prestige.
The Empire was, in a sense, a homage paid
to the Consulate.
The following day, May 19, Napoleon announced a number of appointments
of dignitaries for the new regime: the former Second and Third Consuls, Cambacérès
and Lebrun became, respectively, High Chancellor and Chief Treasurer; Joseph
Bonaparte, Grand Elector; Louis Bonaparte, Constable; and, perhaps the most
surprising, Murat the cavalryman became First Admiral! The title was
fortunately purely honorific and inspired by the precedent of such a title in
the Tsar’s army, whose actual duties remained obscure.
The Emperor also raised 14 generals to the rank of Imperial Marshal: Berthier,
Lannes, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Masséna, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune,
Mortier, Ney, Davout, Bessières. The names of four Senators, who were generals
having had chief command, were also added to this list: Kellermann, Lefebvre,
Pérignon, and Sérurier, men whose relatively advanced age signified that their
appointment was more in recognition of past services than in expectation of new
efforts. Even so, the man nicknamed "Old Lefebvre," still sound of wind and
limb, continued to win renown with his legendary brusqueness until 1814,
including the Russian Campaign.
Lively
Opposition
On April 23, during a private session of the Council of State, in
addition to the issue of heredity, the question of the coronation of the head of
the new dynasty had been raised, and by Bonaparte himself, for he was well
aware of how much support for the throne the backing of a dominant religion
could represent.
In the Assembly, still full of revolutionaries, there was extreme
reluctance to accept the issue. A lively opposition arose.
As soon as he was appointed Emperor – "Emperor of the Republic" –
Napoleon sought to have the Roman Catholic religion, restored by his efforts,
give its sanction to the rights of the throne that the Nation had just
conferred upon him. This involved being anointed by the hands of the Supreme
Pontiff.
For some, this wish was a grave error, for it resuscitated the "always
excessive pretensions of ministers of religion, when, on the contrary, France
and its rulers should be emancipated from foreign dependence, the source of so
many of Europe’s troubles and miseries in previous centuries." Speakers further
supported their case by arguing, with some justification, that "the
intervention of the Pontiff will add nothing to the rights of princes nor the
duties of subjects."
With the realism of a head of state, Bonaparte had retorted: "Anything
that makes the office of government more sacred is a great good" and he
requested Pius VII to crown him in Paris.
The question of the coronation had political
dimensions as well as religious. Talleyrand, Minister for External Affairs, spared
no effort and sent dispatch after dispatch to the Vatican. In one missive, he
described all that the new Emperor had done on behalf on the Church:
"His Majesty regrets to note that it is suggested that he has not
already done all that he could for the Supreme Pontiff to respond to his
invitation. He offers the Holy See and
all of Europe to have his sacred titles recognized by the Church. Churches
reopened, altars restored, observance renewed, the ministry organized, chapters
endowed, seminaries founded, twenty million sacrificed [!] to pay for priests,
the possessions of the Holy See guaranteed, Neapolitans evacuated from Rome,
the Concordat drawn up and authorized, foreign missions reestablished, Eastern
Catholics rescued from persecution and effectively protected from the Ottoman,
such are the kindnesses of the Emperor to the Church of Rome. What other
monarch could match such great and so many acts in the brief space of two or
three years?"
Portrait of Pope Pius VII
by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) (RR)
After Waterloo, the Pope welcomed and protected all the members of the Bonaparte family who asked him for political asylum, and even after his downfall, he continued to regard Napoleon as the man who had restored
Roman catholic religion in France.
While the Pope was inclined to accept, among his entourage quite
different sentiments prevailed. Open hostility was the trend, and the Curia
only gave way on the express condition that the Pope be assured of additional
gains – temporal, need it be said? – and concessions including, of course, the
suppression of the act regarding divorce in the Civil Code.
Royalists Insult the
Pope
The Pope departed from
The meeting occurred on Sunday, November
25,
not in
On November 29, Pius VII arrived in
His arrival unleashed the wrath of the royalists, already furious at
the failure of their attempts to have Bonaparte assassinated. One of them,
Count Joseph de Maistre, future author of the work "On the Pope," pronounced anathema upon this "unworthy pontiff" who,
according to the Countess of Albany, had "sold out his dignity."
The hard-line republicans were outraged that Napoleon, this "Son of the
Revolution" – a label that unfortunately always stuck to him – was
"prostituting" it at the feet of a priest. The efforts of the "priest" deserve
consideration, however, for, at 62 years – quite an advanced age at the time –
in the middle of winter, he had completed a journey of some two thousand, two
hundred kilometers!
In short, just when Napoleon wished to see the French of all tendencies
united with him in the ceremony of the coronation, which he viewed as the
consecration of his work of reconciliation, as usual, they tore each other
apart all the more.
As for the Bonaparte family, they detested Josephine and fumed at the
fact that the woman, whom Joseph called "the Emperor’s present companion" and
whom Napoleon’s mother referred to simply as "Madame de Beauharnois," was going
to be crowned.
Josephine trembled.
Over the preceding weeks, she had calculated how fragile her union was,
being all the more precarious in the absence of any religious sanction.
Therefore, as soon as the Holy Father arrived at the Tuileries – where Napoleon
had designated the Pavilion of Flora for his use – and had recovered from his
exhausting journey, Josephine requested an audience on December 1. She revealed
to the Pope a situation of which he was quite unaware and which astounded him –
that he was to crown as Empress a spouse who had never received the blessing of
the Church!
Pius VII informed the Emperor that it would consequently be impossible
to preside over the coronation of an empress who in the eyes of the Church was
merely a "concubine." Napoleon was forced to yield, and that same evening, in
the presence of two aides de camp serving as witnesses, Cardinal Fesch, the
uncle of the bridegroom, blessed this extraordinary marriage in the chapel of
the Tuileries.
The Emperor "Visibly
Moved"
Contemporary reports state that the snow that had fallen all night long
without interruption gave way to a gloriously sunny day. It was not then known
that, one year later to the day, they would see snow, far from
There is no need to go into all the details of a story that is already
well known, but, as the ceremony has been the subject of much ironical comment,
let us clarify a few specifics.
A witness relates:
"At
"There were 50,000 men under arms and 500,000 onlookers at windows or in the streets. The church was everywhere draped with crimson silk hangings decorated with fringes, braids and armorial bearings embroidered in gold. The nave, choir and sanctuary were laid with Aubusson and Savonnerie carpets. Galleries of seats were crammed with spectators, the ladies brilliant in their finery and jewels, the men splendidly costumed, places assigned to all the great dignitaries of the state, the throne of the Emperor raised in the centre of the nave, that of the Pope in the sanctuary. It was all beautiful, magnificent and well ordered. This blending of the ceremonial pomp of the Church of Rome with the splendour of the Court of the Tuileries afforded a brilliant spectacle for the eyes that no one can deny."
When the cortege arrived at Notre-Dame, the Emperor cast off his
clothes of French style – red velvet embroidered in gold, white scarf, short
coat decorated with imperial bees, hat crowned with white plumes, the collar of
the Legion of Honour encrusted with diamonds – "All that finery suited him very
well," commented the wife of Rémusat the First
Chamberlain – and put on his coronation vestments. The
Empress did likewise.
The same witness remarks that the heavy coat of purple velvet lined
with ermine seemed to crush Napoleon, and that with his "simple laurel crown,
he looked like an antique medal. He was extremely pale and visibly moved."
We shall return later to the ceremony itself, but we must pause a
moment for the scene that is about to unfold.
The Pope is at the altar, the Emperor advances, kneels and receives the
triple unction. Then…
A History of Disinformation
We
must stop awhile at this precise point in the ceremony since history texts and
historians always claim in various ways that Napoleon abruptly seized the crown
intended for him from the hands of the astonished and unfortunate Pope, and
just as brusquely placed it on his own head.
Official documents prove that this event never took place. Invented by French historian Adolphe Thiers in the middle of the 19th century, this version of the "Sacre" is one of the most revolting and most pernicious of all the lies that have been made up and are still told about Napoleon.
What a godsend for all those who have always insulted the memory of
Napoleon, from the fall of the Empire to the present day!
Just what is the story?
We owe the truth to a man who is unquestionably the greatest Napoleonic
historian, who is both brilliant (to read him is to be convinced) and possessed
of sincere Napoleonic convictions –
qualities that mark him as a type long extinct.
Many readers will already have guessed this great name in Napoleonic
studies – Mr. Frédéric Masson.
The light that he casts upon this episode during the ceremony is,
without doubt, more important than the account of the ceremony itself, because
it clarifies – and denounces – one of these items of disinformation that the
Emperor always was – and regrettably still is – victim to.
Let us hear his account.
Napoleon’s coronation, explains Mr. Masson, took place in front of some
25,000 spectators; it was published in programs of which several hundred
thousand copies were distributed, and reprinted in all the newspapers of the
day; it was recorded in official
minutes in an infinite number of copies.
The event was clear beyond any possibility of ambiguity, and "for some
fifty years, no one challenged the facts."
Suddenly, there appeared in the writings of a celebrated politician,
former minister, and member of the Académie française,
etc., Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877), what would most charitably be described as a
legend. This work, The History of the
Consulate and the Empire, written between 1845 and 1862, was so successful
and so in vogue that it eventually replaced facts that were unanimously agreed
on, and to all appearances were universally well known.
Here is what Mr. Frédéric Masson wrote in
1907:
"We are dealing here with one of the
strangest situations imaginable, that this distortion arose spontaneously half
a century later, based on a single account unsupported by any evidence or
attempted proof, and accepted since then for another quarter century by all
those historians who have recounted the same episode, without a single one
taking the trouble to go back to the original sources to check."
What do we read in the Roman rite? That
it is the tradition of crowning that naturally gives meaning to the coronation:
"Receive," reads the ritual, "the crown
of the kingdom which is placed upon your head by the hands, unworthy though
they be, of the bishops, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit."
To accept that formulation, in Napoleon’s eyes, would be a public
admission that he owed his imperial crown to the Pope and Catholic Church
alone.
Given the circumstances in which he had acceded to the throne, Napoleon
could not assent. Therefore, he let Pius VII know that he wished "to take the
crown to avoid any discussion among the great dignitaries of the Empire, who
claimed to be bestowing it upon him in the name of the people."
As indicated in sections XXX, XXXI and XXXII of the Excerpt from the Ceremonial Rite of the
Coronation and Crowning printed by the Imperial Presses, the Emperor "tends
the hand of Justice to the High Chancellor and the sceptre to the Chief
Treasurer, rises to the altar, takes the
crown and places it upon his head, takes into his hands the crown of the
Empress, stands before her and crowns her. The Empress kneels and receives the
crown."
It was perfectly clear. Everything that was to take place in the
ceremony would have the express consent of the Pope – whose good will should be
acknowledged.
Now, Thiers’s version, as reported by Mr. Frédéric
Masson:
"The Pope anointed the Emperor’s
forehead, his arms and his hands, and then blessed the sword that he buckled on
him and the sceptre that he placed in his hand, and approached to take up the
crown. Napoleon… seized the crown from
the hands of the Pontiff, without any abruptness but decisively, and placed it
himself upon his head. This action, which all those present well understood,
produced an inexpressible effect." (This passage was underlined by Mr.
Frédéric Masson).
The story thus was born, and this version, undeniably widespread,
became accepted as a "classic" and was further embroidered.
Let us quote some examples. In A
General History from the Fourth Century to Present Times, published by
Lavisse and Rambaud, one of the authors, Chénon, writes:
"The Pope pronounced the coronation on him and the Empress, but, when he went to place the crown upon his
head, Napoleon seized it abruptly and crowned himself with his own hands.
Pius VII protested, and obtained an assurance that the incident would not be
reported in the Moniteur."
We note that the addition of "abruptly"
raises the stakes further.
Another historian named Élie, actually
Antonin Debidour, Dean of the Faculty of Letters at
"But at the end, when the moment came for
the Pope to take the crown and place it on the head of the Emperor, as had been
agreed [!], all of a sudden Napoleon was seen to seize the crown nimbly [!!]
like a conjurer [sic] and place it
himself upon his head, after which he also crowned the Empress kneeling before
him… The unfortunate Pius VII was dumbfounded at the effrontery of this failure
to keep to an agreement. It would have been futile to protest in the church
itself. Napoleon would have had his voice drowned out by the acclamations of
the crowd…"
The Emperor could not have taken the crown from the hands of the Pope,
abruptly or any other way, when it was all the time on the altar, and Pius VII
was neither "disconcerted" nor "dumbfounded," since he recited the prayers and
then repeated them while Napoleon crowned Josephine. If further proof were
needed, Mr. Frédéric Masson supplies it by emphasizing
two points: the prayers that the Pope intoned while the Emperor took the crown
are to be found in the Order according to
which prayers will be sung and recited during the Coronation ceremony of their
Imperial Majesties, also printed by the Imperial presses, and by the fact
that the minutes, drawn up by the Grand Master of Ceremonies, attest that these
prayers were properly recited.
We know, however, that Napoleon, alias "ogre," "usurper," "Corsican
upstart," always must be the boor. What does it matter, therefore, that the
Mr. Frédéric Masson reaches this (rather too
pessimistic) conclusion:
"Thus, the legend grows and snowballs… It would be appropriate, not
perhaps to put an end to it – those are grand schemes that one flatters oneself
with when young, but experience shows us their futility – but at least to
challenge the prescription."
This comment, almost a century later, has not dated in the slightest.
Pounced upon with a perverse relish that is evident in countless works,
both French and foreign, including a British encyclopedia, Odham’s Young People’s
Encyclopaedia (Odham’s Press Limited, Long Acre,
London, 1958), this false image that Thiers gave to the Coronation Ceremony
and, of course, to its hero, succeeded in indoctrinating entire generations of
English schoolboys and schoolgirls, who are already saturated with appalling
bigotry.
One question, however, remains
unanswered: Why did Thiers, "so called, it was said, because he doesn’t even
add up to half a real man," [making a pun on his name, which when pronounced
sounds like "tiers – one-third" –
Translator] invent this vicious fabrication that establishes him as a
forerunner of certain Napoleonic historians (!) and other mercenary pamphlet
writers today?
The Coronation became the showpiece,
today we would say the most "media-saturated" event, of the Napoleonic era and
the nineteenth century. It was an official political event that had been
preceded by long and delicate negotiations with the
Then, along comes Mr. Thiers, and in a few,
apparently trivial, harmless, "factual" sentences, he gives birth to one of the
most shameless and pernicious lies in Napoleonic history, a lie dignified with
the name of "historical truth" because uttered by a French Academician – which,
in France validates everything and anything, including staining the memory of
the greatest man in the history of that nation.
This doctoring of the truth is
regrettably but one of the frequent defamations that infect the entire history
of Napoleon and the First Empire, so well is it supplied with this type of
mischief.
It may also be said that when one
encounters such palpable disinformation for an event as public as the
Coronation of the Emperor, it is not hard to imagine what was invented – and
still is today – about events that were not subjected to the same scrutiny.
The moral, if one ventures to draw it, is
that some baseless lies are easily
believed, but some truths, based on actual proof, never come out.
"A
Beautiful, Imposing Ceremony"
"With his simple crown of laurel leaves, he looked like an antique medal.
But he was extremely pale and deeply moved",
noted one eye-witness, Madame de Rémusat.
Let us return to the ceremony as it
really took place.
The Emperor, after being anointed, placed
upon his head the crown that rested on
the altar and not between the hands of the Pope.
Having been anointed by the Pope and
crowned by his own hands, Napoleon mounted the steps of the altar and took the
crown intended for the Empress, who was kneeling in wait at the foot of the
steps.
This is the action that the painter David
immortalizes in his famous canvas The
Coronation, which depicts – in reality, and more beautifully – the Crowning of the Empress.
Those closest to Josephine at that moment
saw tears coursing over her clasped hands "that she raised more towards him
[Napoleon] than towards God", according to the account of the celebrated writer
of memoirs, Laure d’Abrantès, and all were struck by the unfeigned tenderness
and affection with which the Emperor laid the crown upon the head of Josephine.
Here is a picture of the Empress, in the
words of Madame de Rémusat:
Joséphine crowned Empress by Napoleon.
Close-up of the monumental (621 x 979 cm) painting : Sacre of the Emperor Napoleon I and the crowning of the Empress Joséphine in the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris,
2nd December, 1804"
by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) (RR)
"The whole ceremony was very imposing and
beautiful. The moment when the Empress was crowned aroused general admiration,
not so much for the act itself, but she possessed such grace and walked so well
towards the altar, she knelt so elegantly and at the same time so unaffectedly,
that she pleased all who looked on."
The Holy Father then led the accolades
for the Emperor, and turning to the crowd, he cried:
"Vivat
Imperator in æternum! "
The audience responded with repeated ovations of "Long Live the Emperor! Long live the Empress!" that filled the
vault.
When the religious service was over, the cortege, lit by thousands of
torches, left Notre-Dame towards
Anointed and crowned, the Emperor could now turn his attentions toward
Official portrait of Napoleon in his coronation costume,
holding the sceptre in his left hand
by Girodet De Roussey-Trioson (1767-1824) (RR)
"When I placed the crown on my head in 1804, ninety-six per cent
of the French people were unable to read and all they knew of liberty
was the madness of 1793." (Year of Terror during the French Revolution).
(Napoleon to Las Cases at St-Helena)
In the next chapter, we find him again at "Boulogne Camp," among his
soldiers impatient to test themselves against this hereditary enemy who, since
the breaking of the Peace of Amiens, had offered repeated provocations.
***