THE CORONATION OF NAPOLEON I[31]
[Footnote 31: As before. Fontaine et Percier: Le Sacre de
Napoleon; Masson: Napoleon et sa famille; Welschinger: Le
divorce de Napoleon; Artaud de Montor: Vie de Pie VII;
Welschinger: Le pape et l'empereur, 1804-1815; Botta: Storia
d'Italia; the Memoirs of Consalvi, Montgaillard, and Bigarre;
Lumbroso: Napoleone I{o e} l'Inghilterra; Marmottan: Le
royaume d'Etrurie.]
The Pope's Perplexities -- Arrival of Pius VII at Fontainebleau
-- Arrangements for the Coronation -- Ecclesiastical Marriage of
Napoleon and Josephine -- The Procession to Notre Dame -- The
Coronation -- Significance of the Act -- Disenchantment of the
Pope -- A Presage of War -- Europe Prepared -- The Rise of
National Feeling -- Prosperity of France -- Literature in France
-- The New Coalition -- Napoleon King of Italy.
Paris had not been agreeably impressed by the spectacle of the
imperial court held at Aachen, and when there appeared in the
"Moniteur" a shrewd reminder that the seat of Roman empire had been
permanently transferred to a Greek city, the feeling of disquiet was
heightened to the desired point. The Parisians were therefore not
disinclined to exhibit an enthusiastic loyalty on the unique occasion
of the coronation. The sometime atheist, later Oriental hero and son
of heaven, quasi-Mohammedan and destroyer of the papacy, but now for
some years past the professed admirer of Christianity, had recently
been addressed by Pius VII, in the form used in addressing legitimate
rulers, as his "son in Christ Jesus." Having gone so far as this
climax, the Pope's scruples finally disappeared, and, on November
second, he set out for his winter journey to the French capital. It is
said that he drew back at the last moment, alleging, not, as he might
well have done, that Napoleon had violated every tradition of Europe
and broken all the commandments, but that the Emperor's letter had
been irregularly delivered by General Caffarelli, instead of being
duly transmitted by the hands of two bishops! No wonder that the
distracted but tenacious man was drawn two ways: as a temporal prince
he must bow as others had done; as the vicar of Christ upon earth, how
could he give the sacred unction to one who so violated the Ark of the
Covenant? But perhaps one office might give assistance to the other;
if neither secular nor spiritual restitution could be obtained in
completeness, partial satisfaction for wrongs of both sorts might be
got.
In due time the venerable traveler reached Fontainebleau. Since the
Pope had come to Paris, and the Emperor had not, as of old, gone to
Rome, so by another reversal the prodigal son had this time come out
to meet his spiritual father. Napoleon was in hunting costume, and
seemed by accident to meet the Pope's carriage as it traversed the
forest. Against his loud protestations the successor of St. Peter
alighted with satin shoes and robes of state upon the muddy ground.
But the Emperor, though a prodigal, was not repentant, for after his
first effusive greeting little acts of contemptuous discourtesy--such,
for example, as himself taking the seat of honor in the carriage which
they entered together--showed that this late successor of Charles the
Great was no second Henry IV, who thought a crown well worth a mass,
but an Otto or a Henry III, determined to assert the secular supremacy
against any assumption recalling the pretensions of Gregory VII.
The day before the ceremony a delegation of the senate had formally
announced the result of the plebiscite, and the Emperor not only had
guaranteed the popular rights as secured by the Revolution, but had
promised to transmit them unimpaired to his children. But where were
the children? That same night, at the last hour, the Empress, who in
the eyes of the Church had so far been only a concubine, obtained by
the Pope's insistence what was the chief desire of her heart, but what
had so often been refused by her husband--a secret marriage to him by
ecclesiastical rite. Would this work a miracle and remove the reproach
of her barrenness? In any case it removed the bar to her coronation by
the Pope, of which nothing had been said in the preliminary
negotiations. This act completed the preparations. The great church
had been renovated and gorgeously decorated; the brilliant costumes,
the imperial scepter, the jeweled crown, were all in readiness;
rehearsals, too, had been held; and still further, by means of
ingeniously devised puppets, every participant had been carefully
taught his exact movements. It had been suggested that, like former
sovereigns, Napoleon should, on the eve of his coronation, repair to
the sanctuary, confess, and receive absolution; but he drew back as
before a sacrilege. In the official program of the ceremonies it was
also arranged that "Their Majesties" should receive the holy
communion; but the article was dropped, and it was currently reported
that the reason was Napoleon's fear lest the Italian prelates should
poison the elements. The Holy Father was not urgent, for he feared a
more serious rebuff than any he had yet received. At the outset he had
inquired whether, according to immemorial custom, he was himself to
set the crown in place on the head of the sovereign. "I will arrange
that," had been Napoleon's reply, and the imperial decision was still
unknown.
It was cold and cloudy on the morning of Sunday, December second,
1804, as the gorgeous procession passed from the Tuileries to Notre
Dame. The streets were lined and the houses decorated; but the people
of Paris, sated with ceremonials, were, in spite of self-interest,
silent and critical. On the other hand, the presence of the German
princes in the train, and the glittering costumes of the court, threw
the provincial deputations, and the throngs of office-holders who had
come up from all France, into a delirium of enthusiasm. The irreverent
tittered when the papal chamberlain ambled by on a mule at the head of
His Holiness's court, but immediately fell on their knees and received
the papal blessing. Clergy and choristers intoned the hymn, "Tu es
Petrus," as the Pontiff entered the majestic cathedral from the
transept, and proceeded to his throne in the center of the choir to
the right of the high altar. After an interval of an hour or more
appeared the Emperor's attendants, Murat leading at the head of twenty
squadrons of cavalry. Then followed the imperial chariot, surmounted
by a crown, and drawn by eight superb and richly caparisoned steeds.
Facing the Emperor and Empress sat Joseph and Louis; the other
brothers were in temporary disgrace, and Madame Mere, stubbornly
devoted to Lucien, was traveling with him somewhere between Milan and
Paris, approaching by stages carefully calculated the capital where as
yet both would have caused embarrassment by their presence. They were
scarcely conspicuous by their absence when, as the artillery salvos
resounded, there advanced eighteen six-horse carriages with the court,
all moving to the sound of triumphal music. Passing in a burst of
sunshine to the archiepiscopal palace, and entering the vestry, the
Emperor donned his coronation robes and a crown of laurel leaves.
Thence, with the Empress at his side, he proceeded in state to the
place prepared for them in the lofty nave, facing the high altar.
Joseph, Louis, Cambaceres, and Lebrun were his pages, and supported
the train of his mantle, heavy with gold and embroidery. The yet empty
throne had been erected in the heart of the choir. From twenty
thousand throats burst the cry, "Long live the Emperor!" as the slow
and stately march proceeded. There was one and only one incident, but
how significant, in this short progress, when Napoleon with head half
turned whispered to Joseph: "If our father could see us now." At last
the entrance of the choir was reached, and the Pope, descending from
his chair, began to intone, amid the deep silence of the throng, the
majestic chant of "Veni, Creator."
This ended, the personages of the court found their appointed seats,
the regalia were laid on the altar, and Pius, holding out a copy of
the Scriptures, demanded in the Latin tongue whether the Emperor would
use all his powers to have law, justice, and peace reign supreme in
the Church and among his people. The Emperor laid both his hands on
the book, and "Profiteor" came the solemn answer. Pope, cardinals,
archbishops, and bishops began the litany, and the sovereigns kneeled.
As the closing strains sounded forth, the imperial pair advanced under
priestly conduct to the steps of the high altar, and kneeled again.
The Pope, pronouncing the customary but long-disused prayer, then
solemnly anointed both in turn with the triple unction on head and
hands. Returning to their chairs, the two chief actors seated
themselves, and high mass began. Midway in its solemn course there was
a pause; the Emperor stepped forward to the altar as if to be invested
at the papal hands with all the insignia of power--ring, mantle, and
crown. The last of the consecrated baubles to be lifted was the
crown. At the pregnant instant, just as the Holy Father, doubting but
hoping, lifted it aloft, the Emperor advanced two paces downward, and,
firmly seizing it in his own hands, set it on his own brow. Without a
movement of hesitancy he then crowned the Empress, and the two,
stepping upward, seated themselves in the great throne of the Empire.
The Pope recovered his self-control, if, indeed, he had momentarily
lost it, and said, "May God confirm you on this throne, and may Christ
give you to rule with him in his eternal kingdom." Then, giving
Napoleon the kiss of peace, he cried, "Vivat imperator in aeternum!"
The throng shouted in antiphony with deafening acclaim. Then the
ritual proceeded, and the religious ceremonial was soon ended. At its
close the presidents of the great assemblages of the State advanced.
The Emperor, with his hands on the Bible, said, "I swear to maintain
the principles of the Revolution, the integrity of French territory,
and to govern for the welfare, happiness, and glory of the French
people." Other particulars, equally radical in their nature, were
added according to constitutional requirement. The hierarchical clergy
must have shuddered as they listened. Then the chief of the heralds'
college stood forth and cried: "The thrice glorious and thrice august
Emperor Napoleon is crowned and enthroned. Long live the Emperor!" At
this moment the cannon outside proclaimed the consummation of the
ceremony. The French nation and the Napoleonic Empire, it was
believed, were wedded in the fusion of Church, State, and army, for
the loyal support of what the masses were sure was now France--"one
and indivisible," as the motto of the Revolution expressed it.
It was just before this pregnant event that Napoleon had freed his
mind to Roederer concerning the ambitions of Joseph and his family in
general. Already his brothers and sisters were organized for the
enterprise of exploiting their relationship, and already they were
rash in their claims. The elder brother was essentially a man of the
clan epoch in the development of society, and begrudged the ascendancy
of his junior. He was nevertheless clamorous for wealth and power,
using his brother's ministers to secure them, to demand them as a
right. To this the younger retorted: My brothers are nothing except
through me, great because I made them so. The French people knows them
only by what I have said. There are thousands of persons in France who
have rendered greater service to the state than they. I will not abide
that they be set beside me in the same row. Joseph is not destined to
reign. I was born in poverty; like me, he was born in the lowest
mediocrity. I have raised myself by my own deeds, he has remained
exactly where he was born. From this position Napoleon never swerved:
for them there must be no expectation of empire. Minor kingdoms,
principalities, and duchies he was glad to distribute with lavish
hand. Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice they accumulated with his
connivance. Lucien married to his own liking and remained a commoner,
but in the positions he held under the consulate and empire he left no
source of gain untouched and lived like a prince, if he had not the
title. Joseph was twice a king, unable in both cases to decide whether
he should be true to his imperial brother or to his subjects, a
vacillator in Spain, as for a time was Louis in Holland: the latter,
however, was at least loyal to his folk if not to his superior.
Jerome's career was a farce, in marriage, in statesmanship, in
everything: it is relieved only by the high character of the consort
Napoleon selected for him. Of the women in the family, not much can be
said which indicates a sense of gratitude to their imperial brother
for his prodigal favors. Caroline, the spouse of Murat, was a woman of
force, and was more loyal to her benefactor than any of his blood,
unless it were the giddy, light, beautiful, fascinating Pauline, who,
though a child of the sixteenth rather than the nineteenth century,
had a heart and showed it in great crises.
Pius VII was a disenchanted man. He claimed that the Emperor had
broken an express promise in seizing the crown, and was silent only
because the official journal called no attention to the incident. For
several months he remained a suppliant in Paris. One demand after
another was perforce abandoned. He had hoped to destroy the last
vestige of Gallican liberties, and to see the Roman Church recognized,
not as a privileged sect, but as the national ecclesiastical organism.
His temporary secretary, Cardinal Antonelli, found in Napoleon's
minister of public worship, Portalis, an adversary as learned in
ecclesiastical matters, as polished, adroit, and unctuous, as himself,
and spent his diplomatic arts in vain. Two small concessions were
indeed made. The statesman promised to restore the Gregorian calendar,
and the Emperor, with a half-ironical, half-superstitious feeling,
dated the course of the Empire after January first, 1806, not by the
Revolutionary reckoning, but by the Christian. It was likewise ordered
that the bishops and priests who had sworn to the civil constitution
should take the ecclesiastical oath, and thus return to the fold. In
the field of temporal negotiations the Roman prince was quite as
unsuccessful as in the spiritual. It was in vain that he pleaded the
gift of Charles the Great, which made him a sovereign prince.
Talleyrand replied that what God had given to the Emperor the Emperor
must keep, but an opportunity might offer to increase the States of
the Church. The successor to St. Peter left Paris wounded and
disillusioned, considering, says his memorialist Consalvi, that the
Emperor must have intended, by the poverty of his gifts, to show the
light estimate he put on the papal services. Weakened in dignity and
general esteem, outwitted at every point, the Pope returned to Rome, a
bitter and secret enemy of the Empire he had sanctioned.
When the legislature assembled, two days after Christmas, and the
Emperor opened its session with a state proportionate to his new
dignity, his speech from the throne was not merely an enumeration of
what France owed to the new dispensation,--the civil and other codes,
prizes for the encouragement of letters, industry, and the arts, the
achievement of splendid public works,--it was also a presage of war.
He declared that Italy, like France, needed a definite organization;
that Austria was recuperating her strength; that the King of Prussia
was the friend of France. Turkey, however, he said, was pursuing with
vacillation and timidity a policy foreign to her interests, and he
dragged in an expression of his desire that the spirit of Catherine
the Great should guide the councils of the Czar Alexander. "He will
remember," said the Emperor, "that the friendship of France is a
necessary counterpoise for him in the European balance.... Set far
from her, he can neither touch her interests nor trouble her repose."
These were clearly words of warning. They meant that Russia must
abandon her new Oriental policy, forget the anxiety she felt about
French control in Italy and Naples, and forbear to chafe under the
limitations of her trade with England, necessitated by the closing of
all harbors in western Europe to English commerce.
The feeling arose, and at once became general, not only in France, but
in Europe, that these words of the Emperor meant an appeal to force.
The Revolution had claimed to have a world-wide mission in protecting
the oppressed and establishing justice. The nations had felt a solemn
awe when they saw this task intrusted to the greatest general of his
day. But now in a twinkling all was changed; here was a new kind of
monarch; not a king, but a king of kings; and headstrong, wilful, and
selfish, just as kings were, with no more respect than they for the
rights of man. The greatest general of Europe was now its most
ambitious and ruthless sovereign. It was a powerful argument for the
royalists of the Continent that their old kings, whom they knew, were
better than this novel, unknown tyrant.
It is a trite remark that, however rapidly events may move, no gulf or
cleft separates two epochs either of national life or of general
history. The germs of that national uprising which later overwhelmed
Napoleon can be observed as early as 1805. The tide of his success was
still to flow high before the turn, but his alliance with a great idea
began to dissolve before he struck the first blow for his dynasty. It
was with a light heart and a new enthusiasm that Europe went to war in
1805. Even the Russian peasants, peering into the misty diplomacy
which strove to conceal the Czar's Oriental ambitions and dynastic
pride under complaints about the Duc d'Enghien, and demands for
indemnity to Piedmont, a kingdom almost extinct, saw dimly that the
principles of eternal justice and right were no longer on the side of
France, but on theirs. If France was to live henceforth under
monarchical rule, her ruler must be made to keep his place in the
former political equipoise and abide by the old rules of international
law. This fact constituted the moral strength of Russia's position
when she somewhat hastily dismissed the French envoy from St.
Petersburg. Even then men began dimly to apprehend that, for the
triumph of the rights of man which the republic had so loudly
proclaimed, the nations must now rise against Napoleon and rally to
their dynasties.
While this change of sentiment, elemental in the history of the time,
was gradually taking place outside of France, that nation was
interested in itself as rarely before. Commerce and industry were
rising and developing under a sense of security. Trade and engineering
had received a mighty impulse by the inception of those splendid
public works which still make the First Empire illustrious,--the
superb highways of the Simplon, Mt. Cenis, and Mt. Genevre, the great
canals of St. Quentin, Arles, Aigues-Mortes, in France proper, with
those of even higher importance in Belgium,--and by the improvement of
every land and water route which made intercommunication easy. Where
the Emperor's interest made it seem best, public buildings rose like
magic. Labor was abundant, and prosperity almost commonplace; the
spell of Napoleon's name and dynasty fascinated men to an ever-growing
degree. There were shadows: the budget for 1805 was alarming, for the
last harvest had been bad; the American payment was spent, Spain could
not be asked for a further subsidy when arming herself for French
support, and the prohibition of English trade diminished the customs
revenues. The price of French bonds fell for a time at a tremendous
rate. But the ingenuity of the Emperor was still fecund. A new tariff,
a new syndicate of bankers to scale the public debt, a new tax laid on
litigants: such were his expedients, and they temporarily succeeded.
When the senate adjourned in March, the members of that high assembly
were requested to report how the new machinery was working in their
respective homes. It appeared to be working very well.
At the same time the imperial masquerade was further continued in a
proclamation which it pleased the imperial writer to date from Aachen,
the capital of Charles the Great. Rome reestablished in France, the
land of science, literature, and art, the glories of the coming
century should eclipse those of the past. To this end were founded
prizes, some of ten thousand, some of five thousand francs, which once
in ten years, on the eighteenth of Brumaire, the Emperor with his own
gracious hand would distribute in state to successful competitors in
the race for scientific, artistic, and literary honors. The best book
in each of the physical, mathematical, and historical sciences
respectively would then be crowned; so, too, the best play, the best
poem, the best opera, the best mechanical invention, the best
painting, the best statue. Unfortunately the brightest spirits of the
nation were in exile. The inspiration of those who worked under fear
was but a scanty rill, and the French intellectual life of the
Napoleonic age was feeble and uncertain. Not that the output was
meager, for it was not; but the censorship was applied to newspapers
and books with ever-increasing rigor, and what did appear in books or
on the stage was in general utterly colorless and vague. The only
exceptions were those pieces which summoned historical allusions to
bolster the existing government. The censors smiled approval on the
story of "William the Conqueror" as told by Duval, on the tale of
"Peter the Great" in the words of Carrion-Nisas, on M. J. Chenier's
"Cyrus," or Raynouard's "Templars," on any thing which, in the
Emperor's own words, set forth the "passage from the first to the
second race," provided only the theme was from days sufficiently
distant. The career of Henry IV, founder of the Bourbon line, who
became king by the victories of the Protestants and by the (p.~351)
consent of the people, was not to Napoleon's liking, even though he
traced in that career a resemblance to his own. The daily papers could
publish no news except such as redounded to the credit of France, and
dared not discuss religious matters at all. In the whole country there
was but one unfettered genius, that of the painter Prud'hon, and he
was free because he moved in the orbit of antiquity, within limits
which did not intersect the public life of his day. Gros might perhaps
rank near him, but David's talent and Chenier's muse were alike
enthralled in fetters light but strong. Some high authorities have but
lately claimed immortality for Senancour and the subtle abstractions
of "Obermann"; but they are caviare not merely to the multitude, but
to many of the initiated.
With France at his back and his great army perfectly equipped, the
Emperor was now ready for the continental war which was to give
permanency to his system. In the eyes of all Europe the rupture with
England had been due to British bad faith in refusing to evacuate
Malta according to the treaty of Amiens. Napoleon, in a second
personal letter to George III, written with his own hand on January
second, 1805, deprecated the consequences of this fact; he felt his
conscience awakened by such useless bloodshed, and conjured his
Majesty "not to refuse himself the happiness of giving peace to the
world, nor to put it off to become a sweet satisfaction to his
Majesty's children. It was time to silence passion and hear the voice
of humanity and reason." The answer was evasive. England must first
consult the continental powers with which she had confidential
relations. As Parliament had in February voted five and a half million
pounds sterling for secret purposes,--that is, as a subsidy to
Austria,--there could be no doubt of what this answer meant.
The war with England was felt therefore to be just. Russia was in a
state of hostility, but quiescent because she had meddled with what
was not her affair. If she began a war, that likewise would be a
conflict on Napoleon's part for French independence. How could Austria
be put in the same position? The answer was not difficult for a man of
such universal grasp. It was clear that those states dependent on
France which, following her example, had adopted in turn the forms and
constitution of a directorial, and subsequently of a consular,
republic, must still follow their leader and accept the rule of a
single man. They could not be imperial commonwealths except as part of
France, for there could be but one emperor: they could accomplish the
end only by giving a new meaning to kingship. The Italian republic was
not averse to securing constitutional monarchy if only it might be rid
of French officials and the payment of subsidies. Taking advantage of
this, Napoleon determined to make the change, and bestow the crown
either on Joseph or on the child which was accepted by the world as
Louis's eldest son. On this infant he had always lavished the
attentions of a father. Both brothers flatly refused the proposal on
the ground that it would prejudice their rights in the imperial
succession. Their sovereign appeared to be very angry, but soon
suggested to the Italian delegation which he had summoned to Paris
that he might himself accept the dignity, a hint which was a command.
Late in March, with a suite comprising the chief courtiers, Napoleon
began his progress toward Milan. The Emperor of Austria--for to this
title Francis was reduced by the dismemberment of Germany--was told in
a gracious personal letter that with Russian troops at Corfu and
English soldiers at Malta the two crowns of France and Italy could not
be kept apart, except nominally, but that "this situation would cease
the moment both these islands were evacuated." The attention of all
Europe was momentarily diverted from Boulogne to the spectacle at
Milan. On May twenty-sixth, in the cathedral, the Emperor of the
French was, by his own hand, crowned King of Italy, and that with the
iron crown of Lombardy, a diadem considered the most precious on
earth, for it was said to be made from the nails which pierced the
Saviour's feet and hands. It was with perceptible defiance that, as he
set the emblem on his head, he uttered the traditional words: "God
hath given it to me; let him beware who touches it." The herald called
in clarion tones: "Napoleon, Emperor of the French and King of Italy,
is crowned, anointed, and enthroned. Long live the emperor and king."
The church rocked with joyous acclamation, in the square and the
streets women and children wept, men threw themselves before his
carriage as he passed, and were saved with difficulty from the death
they sought in their delirium of joy. The great of the land were
intoxicated with the enthusiasm of the masses, and even when sobriety
regained its seat the attendant festivals surpassed in splendor
anything yet seen in the Lombard capital.