The heavy firing of salvos of artillery soon after dawn, from a dozen points all over Paris, ushered in the day’s doings. The whole city was already, as has been said, astir and in the streets, making its way to the Champ de Mars. Everywhere dark columns of cloaked soldiers, horse and foot, artillerymen without their guns, were tramping along through the slush and mud for their posts; some to take part on the route of the procession, which was to start from the Tuileries; most of them bound for the Field of Mars. Along the streets to be passed by the Imperial procession the houses were gaily decked out with festoons and branches of evergreens, or with coloured hangings and drapings. Oriental rugs of gorgeous hues and patterns, hired or borrowed for the Coronation week, hung from most of the windows; they were the favourite form of decoration. Here and there flags were seen, but it was not the fashion in Paris at that day to fly flags largely on days of public rejoicing.
At ten o’clock the cannon again thundered out an Imperial salute—a hundred and one guns. All knew what that was for, and there was a hush of expectation all over Paris. The guns meant that the Emperor had started; that the Imperial State procession had left the Tuileries. At that moment the chilly drizzle of sleet was still coming down, but the universal enthusiasm rose superior to the wet and cold. No weather could damp the anticipations of the excited Parisians over the Imperial spectacle.
MURAT COMMANDS THE PARADE
On the Champ de Mars, as the guns began to fire, the soldiers—all long since in their places drawn up in closely massed columns, that ranged right round the parade ground on three sides—stripped off and rolled up their soaked cloaks, fixed bayonets, and stood to arms. Murat, Governor of Paris, Commander-in-Chief on the parade, took post in front of the Imperial Pavilion before the Ecole Militaire: a gorgeous figure in a bright blue velvet uniform coat, resplendently embroidered with gold, a lilac sash with crimson stripes round his waist; in scarlet breeches braided with gold, purple leather Hessians, trimmed and tasselled with gold, with gleaming gold spurs and sabre-scabbard; wearing a Marshal’s cocked hat with crimson ostrich-plumes, and mounted on a no less splendidly caparisoned charger, with leopard-skin and crimson and gold saddle-trappings. A brilliant entourage of staff officers and dandy aides de camp, daintily attired in pearl-grey uniforms, with silver lace, or in crimson and green and gold, clustered in rear of their chief.
Simultaneously, the massed bands of the Imperial Guard, who had been playing national airs and popular music at times during the past hour, formed to the front near by.
For the time being, until after the Emperor should arrive and take his seat on the throne, the troops on parade, comprising the Army deputations to receive the Eagles, remained as they had been marshalled on arrival; arranged in a vast fan-shaped formation round three sides of the Champ de Mars. The entire Imperial Army of Napoleon stood represented within that space: Imperial Guard, and Line, Cavalry and Artillery; the sailors of the Navy; the National Guard,—the mise en scène presenting a tremendous impression of martial power, as all stood formed up in close order, in their full-dress review-uniforms, muskets held stiffly at the support, bayonets fixed.
The Imperial procession set off in full State, accompanied by much the same display of martial pomp that had attended the great Coronation progress to Notre Dame of three days before. It moved off in a pelting squall of sleet; but, almost immediately afterwards, as though Heaven would fain spare the show, within a few minutes of the start, the sleet and rain ceased and the weather unexpectedly improved.
THE MAMELUKES LEAD THE WAY
Foremost of all, the mounted Mamelukes of the Guard came prancing by, radiant in Oriental garb, their curved scimitars drawn and gleaming; a hundred swarthy figures in scarlet calpacks swathed round with white turbans, garbed in vivid green burnous-cloaks well thrown back to display gold-embroidered scarlet jackets, bright straw-coloured sashes, and baggy scarlet trousers. Their famous Horse-tail Standard headed the squadron. Eight hundred stalwart troopers of Napoleon’s pet regiment, the corps whose uniform he always wore in camp, the Chasseurs of the Guard, followed immediately after the Mamelukes. An ideal corps d’élite they looked as they rode by, in their bristling busbies of dark fur topped with waving crimson and green plumes, dark green double-breasted jackets, and crimson breeches; with crimson pelisses hanging at the shoulder, fur-trimmed and barred with yellow braid in hussar style. These two corps led the van of the procession.
The first set of Imperial coaches, with six horses each and outriders, thereupon came by. They carried mostly State magnificos and grandees of exalted position at Court. Coach after coach went slowly past at a dignified pace: eight—nine—ten—eleven—conveyances, all spick and span with new gilding and varnish. The twelfth coach, beside which rode a bevy of smart equerries, held the Princesses of the Bonaparte family: five grown-up ladies and the little daughter of Princess Louis. It was rather a tight squeeze, for the five Imperial Highnesses were plump and bulky persons, and had to be wedged closely; they brought with them too, each lady, several yards of train, brocaded stuff with stiff edging of gilt-gimp, and thick purple and emerald green velvet mantling, which had all to be got in and kept from crumpling as much as possible! What they said to one another has not been recorded—they were usually free-spoken women with comments for most things ready to their tongues, like other daughters of the Revolution. At any rate this is known. They were in white silk dresses, low necked, and, in spite of their close packing, shivered with the cold, which they felt bitterly. “We were all,” related a Lady of Honour elsewhere in the procession, “thinly dressed, as for a heated ball-room, and had only thin Cashmere shawls to keep our shoulders warm with.”