New arrangements were accordingly proposed. Lucien and Jerome having, for the present at least, put themselves out of court by their unsatisfactory marriages, Napoleon appeared to accept a reconciliation with Joseph and Louis, and to place them in the order of succession, as the Senate recommended. But he still reserved the right of adopting the son of Louis and of thus favouring his chances of priority. Indeed, it must be admitted that the Emperor at this difficult crisis showed conjugal tact and affection, for which he has received scant justice at the hands of Josephine's champions. "How could I divorce this good wife," he said to Roederer, "because I am becoming great?" But fate seemed to decree the divorce, which, despite the reasonings of his brothers, he resolutely thrust aside; for the little boy on whose life the Empress built so many fond hopes was to be cut off by an early death in the year 1807.
Then there were frequent disputes between Napoleon and Joseph. Both of them had the Corsican's instinct in favour of primogeniture; and hitherto Napoleon had in many ways deferred to his elder brother. Now, however, he showed clearly that he would brook not the slightest interference in affairs of State. And truly, if we except Joseph's diplomatic services, he showed no commanding gifts such as could raise him aloft along with the bewildering rush of Napoleon's fortunes. The one was an irrepressible genius, the other was a man of culture and talent, whose chief bent was towards literature, amours, and the art of dolce far niente, except when his pride was touched: then he was capable of bursts of passion which seemed to impose even on his masterful second brother. Lucien, Louis, and even the youthful Jerome, had the same intractable pride which rose defiant even against Napoleon. He was determined that his brothers should now take a subordinate rank, while they regarded the dynasty as largely due to their exertions at or after Brumaire, and claimed a proportionate reward. Napoleon, however, saw that a dynasty could not thus be founded. As he frankly said to Roederer, a dynasty could only take firm root in France among heirs brought up in a palace: "I have never looked on my brothers as the natural heirs to power: I only consider them as men fit to ward off the evils of a minority."
Joseph deeply resented this conduct. He was a Prince of the Empire, and a Grand Elector; but he speedily found out that this meant nothing more than occasionally presiding at the Senate, and accordingly indulged in little acts of opposition that enraged the autocrat. In his desire to get his brother away from Paris, the Emperor had already recommended him to take up the profession of arms; for he could not include him in the succession, and place famous marshals under him if he knew nothing of an army. Joseph perforce accepted the command of a regiment, and at thirty-six years of age began to learn drill near Boulogne.[312] This piece of burlesque was one day to prove infinitely regrettable. After the disaster of Vittoria, Napoleon doubtless wished that Joseph had for ever had free play in the tribune of the Senate rather than have dabbled in military affairs. But in the spring and summer of 1804 the Emperor noted his every word; so that, when he ventured to suggest that Josephine should not be crowned at the coming coronation, Napoleon's wrath blazed forth. Why should Joseph speak of his rights and his interests? Who had won power? Who deserved to enjoy power? Power was his (Napoleon's) mistress, and he dared Joseph to touch her. The Senate or Council of State might oppose him for ten years, without his becoming a tyrant: "To make me a tyrant one thing alone is necessary—a movement of my family."[313]
The family, however, did not move. As happened with all the brothers except Lucien, Joseph gave way at the critical moment. After threatening at the Council of State to resign his Grand Electorate and retire to Germany if his wife were compelled to bear Josephine's train at the coronation, he was informed by the Emperor that either he must conduct himself dutifully as the first subject of the realm, or retire into private life, or oppose—and be crushed. The argument was unanswerable, and Joseph yielded. To save his own and his wife's feelings, the wording of the official programme was altered: she was to support Josephine's mantle, not to bear her train.
In things great and small Napoleon carried his point. Although Roederer pleaded long and earnestly that Joseph and Louis should come next to the Emperor in the succession, and inserted a clause in the report which he was intrusted to draw up, yet by some skilful artifice this clause was withdrawn from the constitutional act on which the nation was invited to express its opinion: and France assented to a plébiscite for the establishment of the Empire in Napoleon's family, which passed over Joseph and Louis, as well as Lucien and Jerome, and vested the succession in the natural or adopted son of Napoleon, and in the heirs male of Joseph or Louis. Consequently these princes had no place in the succession, except by virtue of the senatus consultant of May 18th, which gave them a legal right, it is true, but without the added sanction of the popular vote. More than three and a half million votes were cast for the new arrangement, a number which exceeded those given for the Consulate and the Consulate for Life. As usual, France accepted accomplished facts.
Matters legal and ceremonial were now approaching completion for the coronation. Negotiations had been proceeding between the Tuileries and the Vatican, Napoleon begging and indeed requiring the presence of the Pope on that occasion. Pius VII. was troubled at the thought of crowning the murderer of the Duc d'Enghien; but he was scarcely his own master, and the dextrous hints of Napoleon that religion would benefit if he were present at Notre Dame seem to have overcome his first scruples, besides quickening the hope of recovering the north of his States. He was to be disappointed in more ways than one. Religion was to benefit only from the enhanced prestige given to her rites in the coming ceremony, not in the practical way that the Pope desired. And yet it was of the first importance for Napoleon to receive the holy oil and the papal blessing, for only so could he hope to wean the affections of royalists from their uncrowned and exiled king. Doubtless this was one of the chief reasons for the restoration of religion by the Concordat, as was shrewdly seen at the time by Lafayette, who laughingly exclaimed: "Confess, general, that your chief wish is for the little phial."[314] The sally drew from the First Consul an obscene disclaimer worthy of a drunken ostler. Nevertheless, the little phial was now on its way.
In order to divest the meeting of Pope and Emperor of any awkward ceremony, Napoleon arranged that it should take place on the road between Fontainebleau and Nemours, as a chance incident in the middle of a day's hunting. The benevolent old pontiff was reclining in his carriage, weary with the long journey through the cold of an early winter, when he was startled to see the retinue of his host. The contrast in every way was striking. The figure of the Emperor had now attained the fullness which betokens abounding health and strength: his face was slightly flushed with the hunt and the consciousness that he was master of the situation, and his form on horseback gained a dignity from which the shortness of his legs somewhat detracted when on foot. As he rode up attired in full hunting costume, he might have seemed the embodiment of triumphant strength. The Pope, on the other hand, clad in white garments and with white silk shoes, gave an impression of peaceful benevolence, had not his intellectual features borne signs of the protracted anxieties of his pontificate. The Emperor threw himself from his horse and advanced to meet his guest, who on his side alighted, rather unwillingly, in the mud to give and receive the embrace of welcome. Meanwhile Napoleon's carriage had been driven up: footmen were holding open both doors, and an officer of the Court politely handed Pius VII. to the left door, while the Emperor, entering by the right, took the seat of honour, and thus settled once for all the vexed question of social precedence.[315]
During the Pope's sojourn at Fontainebleau, Josephine breathed to him her anxiety as to her marriage; it having been only a civil contract, she feared its dissolution, and saw in the Pope's intervention a chance of a firmer union with her consort. The pontiff comforted her and required from Napoleon the due solemnization of his marriage; it was therefore secretly performed by Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Fesch, two days before the coronation.[316]
It was not enough, however, that the successor of St. Peter should grace the coronation with his presence: the Emperor sought to touch the imagination of men by figuring as the successor of Charlemagne. We here approach one of the most interesting experiments of the modern world, which, if successful, would profoundly have altered the face of Europe and the character of its States. Even in its failure it attests Napoleon's vivid imagination and boundless mental resources. He aspired to be more than Emperor of the French: he wished to make his Empire a cosmopolitan realm, whose confines might rival those of the Holy Roman Empire of one thousand years before, and embrace scores of peoples in a grand, well-ordered European polity.
Already his dominions included a million of Germans in the Rhineland, Italians of Piedmont, Genoa, and Nice, besides Savoyards, Genevese, and Belgians. How potent would be his influence on the weltering chaos of German and Italian States, if these much-divided peoples learnt to look on him as the successor to the glories of Charlemagne! And this honour he was now to claim. However delusive was the parallel between the old semi-tribal polity and modern States where the peoples were awakening to a sense of their nationality, Napoleon was now in a position to clear the way for his great experiment. He had two charms wherewith to work, material prosperity and his gift of touching the popular imagination. The former of these was already silently working in his favour: the latter was first essayed at the coronation.