The title of First Consul, by which Napoleon had been distinguished for more than four years, was exchanged on the 18th of May 1804 for that of Emperor by the advice of the Senate, where it was first publicly broached, and by the universal assent of the French nation. Upwards of 3,500,000 voted for the measure and about 2,000 against it. The debates in the Senate were somewhat protracted and so great was the impatience of the military that the garrison of Paris had resolved to proclaim their chief as Emperor, at the first review; and Murat, governor of the city, was obliged to assemble the officers at his house, and bind them by a promise to restrain the troops. The spirit of the army at Boulogne was soon manifested, by their voting the erection of a colossal statue of Napoleon, in bronze, to be placed in the midst of the camp. Every soldier subscribed a portion of his pay for the purpose; but there was a want of bronze. Soult, who presided over the completion of the undertaking, went, at the head of a deputation to Napoleon, and said: "Sire, lend me the bronze, and I will repay it in enemy's cannon at the first battle," and he kept his word.
From a Painting by J. L. David
Allegorial Representation of Napoleon Crossing the Alps
On the 27th of May Napoleon received the oath of the Senate, the constituted bodies, the learned corporations and the troops of the garrison of Paris. Louis XVIII. immediately addressed a protest to all the sovereigns of Europe against the usurpation of Napoleon. Fouché, who was the first who heard of this document, immediately communicated the intelligence to the Emperor, with a view to prepare the necessary orders to watch over those who might attempt its circulation; but great was his surprise, on receiving directions to have the whole inserted in "The Moniteur" the following morning, where it actually appeared. This was all the notice taken of the matter by Napoleon.
On December 1st of the same year, the lists of votes in favor of the establishment of the hereditary succession of the Empire in his family were publicly presented by the Senate to Napoleon, and on the following day, in the midst of one of the most imposing and brilliant scenes ever enacted in France, Napoleon and Josephine were crowned Emperor and Empress of France by Pius VII., the Pontiff of Rome, in the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
The Emperor took his coronation oath as usual on such occasions, with his hand upon the Scripture, and in the form repeated to him by the Pope; but in the act of coronation itself there was a marked deviation from the universal custom. The crown having been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon took it from the altar with his own hands and placed it on his brow. He then put the diadem on the head of Josephine. The heralds proclaimed that "the thrice glorious and thrice august Napoleon, Emperor of the French, was crowned and installed;" and so ended the pageant. "Those who remember having beheld it," says Sir Walter Scott, "must now doubt whether they were waking, or whether fancy had formed a vision so dazzling in its appearance, so extraordinary in its origin and progress, and so ephemeral in its endurance."
The senators of the Italian Republic soon afterwards requested that Napoleon be crowned as their king, and on the following May 1805, in the ancient cathedral of Milan, he assumed the Iron Crown of the Lombard kings, saying as he did so, "God has given it to me; let him beware who would touch it!"
The new order of knighthood, that of the Iron Crown, with these words for its motto, arose out of this ceremony.
On the 8th of May, while on the road to Milan, Napoleon expressed a wish to visit the battlefield of Marengo, on which he had reconquered Italy five years before. All the French troops in that part of Italy were therefore mustered there, to the number of 30,000. Covered with the hat and uniform which he wore on the day of that memorable conflict—the Emperor passed the army in review on horseback, and distributed crosses of the Legion of Honor, with the same ceremonies which had been observed on the Champ de Mars and the same return of enthusiastic devotion on the parts of the troops. "It was remarked," says Bourrienne, "that the worms, who spare neither the costumes of living kings, nor the bodies of deceased heroes, had been busy with the trophies of Marengo, which, nevertheless, Bonaparte wore at the review." Napoleon did not continue his journey until after he had laid the first stone of the monument consecrated to those who had been slain on the battlefield, and on the same day he made his entry into Milan. Meanwhile the activity in France continued unabated, and scarcely a day passed without some trifling engagement, brought on by the rigorous pursuit of the squadrons of the French fleet, as they advanced to Boulogne.