This marriage, which she desired both as a loving woman and as a devout Christian, was the most glorious triumph which Josephine had ever obtained over the enmity of her husband’s sisters, for it was a new proof of the love and faithfulness of this man, whom neither expediency, nor family, nor state reasons, could remove from her, and who, with the hand of love, had guided her away from all the dangers which had surrounded her.
CHAPTER XL.
THE CORONATION.
At last, on the 2d of December, came the day which Napoleon had during many years past longed for within the recesses of his heart; the day which his ambition had hoped for, the day of his solemn coronation. And now the victorious soldier was to see all his laurels woven into an imperial crown—that which Julius Caesar had tried to win, and for which the republic punished him with death.
But now the republicans were silent: before this new Julius Caesar they dare not lift up their swords, for the power belonged to him, and that he knew how to punish had been seen by trembling France not long ago at the execution of George Cadoudal and his associates, the people sanctioning those executions.
There was no Brutus there to plunge the dagger into the breast of the new Cassar. His was the victory, the throne, the crown; and all France was in joyous excitement at this new triumph, that the pope himself should come from Rome to Paris so as to place the crown on the head of an emperor by the grace of the people, and to make of the elect of the people an elect of God.
The day had scarcely begun to dawn when all the streets of Paris through which the imperial as well as the papal procession had to move toward Notre Dame were filled with wave-like masses of human beings, who soon occupied not only the streets but all the windows and all the roofs of the houses. Those who were fortunate enough to be provided with cards of admission into Notre Dame, went at six o’clock in the morning to the cathedral, for whose adorning during the last fourteen days more than a thousand workmen had been busy, and who had not yet quite finished their work, retiring only when the approach of the pope and of his suite was announced. In the interior of the Tuileries began from the commencement of the day, on three different sides, a lively movement.
Here, in the apartments which the pope occupied, gathered together the cardinals, the clergy, and all the church dignitaries who in the pope’s suite were to proceed to Notre Dame.