The Duchess d’Abrantes, who was quite near Josephine, and an immediate witness of the whole celebration, depicts the next scene in the following words: “The moment when the greatest number of eyes were fixed upon the altar-steps where the emperor stood, was when Josephine was crowned by him, and was solemnly consecrated Empress of the French. What a moment! ... what a homage! What a proof of love manifested to her from him who so much loved her!
“David’s painting, and many other pictures taken during the coronation, at the very spot and time, have well represented the empress at the feet of Napoleon, who crowns her; then the pope, the priests, and even persons who were four hundred miles away—as, for instance, the emperor’s mother, who was then in Rome, but whom David nevertheless brings into his picture. But nothing, however, can give us a true description, or even an approximate idea, of this alike touching and lofty scene, where a great man by his own efforts ascends a throne, for on this occasion he was full of gratitude and emotion.
“When the moment had come for Josephine to take her part in the great drama, the empress rose from the throne and approached the altar, where the emperor was waiting for her; she was followed by the ladies of the palace and by her whole court, while the Princesses Caroline, Julie (the wife of Joseph), the Princess Elise, and Louis Bonaparte, carried the trail of her robe. One of the most admirable features in the beauty of the Empress Josephine was not her fine, graceful figure, but the bearing of her head—the gracious and noble manner in which she moved and walked. I have had the honor to be introduced to many ‘real princesses,’ as they are termed, in the Faubourg St. Germain, and I can in all sincerity say that I have never seen one who appeared to me so imposing as the Empress Josephine. In her, grace and majesty were blended. When she put on the grand imperial robes there was no woman whose appearance could be more royal in demeanor, and, in reality, none who understood the art of occupying a throne as well as she, though she never had been instructed in it.
“I read all that I have now said in the eyes of Napoleon. He watched with delight the empress as she moved toward him; and as she knelt before him, ... as the tears she could not restrain streamed down her folded hands, which were lifted up to him more than to God, at that moment, when Napoleon, or, much more, when Bonaparte was for her the real and visible Providence, there passed over these two beings one of those fugitive minutes, unique in its kind, and never to be recalled in a whole life, and which fills to overflowing the void of many long years. The emperor performed with an unexcelled grace the most minute details of every part of the subsequent ceremony, especially when the moment came to crown the empress.
“This ceremony was to be performed by the emperor himself, who, after he had received the small closed crown surmounted by a cross, placed it first on his own head, and then afterward on the head of the empress. He performed these two movements with a most exquisite slowness, which was indeed admirable. But at the moment when he was to crown her who was for him, according to a prophecy, ‘the star of happiness,’ he made himself, if I dare use the expression, coquettish. He arranged this little crown which was to stand over her coronet of diamonds, and placed it on her head, then lifted it up to replace it in another way, as if to promise her that this crown would be light and pleasant to her.” [Footnote: Abrantes, “Memoires.”]
After this twofold crowning performed by Napoleon himself, the pope, surrounded by cardinals and prelates, approached the throne, and arriving upon the platform pronounced in a loud voice, spreading his hands over their imperial majesties, the ancient Latin formula of enthronization: “In hoc solio confirme vos Deus, et in regno aeterno secum regnare faciat Christus.” (God establish you on this throne, and Christ make you reign with Him in His everlasting kingdom.) He then kissed the emperor on the cheeks, and turning himself to the audience, cried with a loud voice: “Vivat imperator in aeternum!”
The immense cathedral resounded with one glad shout of thousands of voices: “Long live the emperor! long live the empress!” Napoleon, calm and reserved, answered this acclamation with a friendly motion of the head. Josephine stood near him, pale, deeply moved, her eyes, full of tears, fixed on the emperor, as if she would pray to him, and not to God, for the prosperity and blessing of the future.
Meanwhile the pope had descended from his throne, and while he approached the altar, the bands played “Long live the emperor,” which the Abbe Kose had composed for this solemnity. Then the pope, standing before the altar, intoned the Te Deum, which was at once executed by four choirs and two orchestras, and which completed the ecclesiastical part of the ceremony.
This was followed by a secular one. The emperor took, on the Bible which Cardinal Fesch presented to him, the oath prescribed in the constitution, and whereby he pledged himself solemnly to maintain “the most wise results of the revolution, to defend the integrity of the territory, and to rule only in the interest of the happiness and glory of the French people.” After he had taken this oath, a herald approached the edge of the platform, and, according to ancient custom, cried out in a loud voice: “The most mighty and glorious Emperor Napoleon, Emperor of the French, is crowned and enthroned! Long live the emperor!”
A tremendous, prolonged shout of joy followed this proclamation: “Long live the emperor! Long live the empress!” and then an artillery salute thundered forth from behind the cathedral, and a similar salute responded from the Tuileries, and from the Invalides, and proclaimed to all Paris that France had again found a ruler, that a new dynasty had been lifted up above the French people.