INAUGURATION OF THE EMPEROR.
The peers and deputies summoned for the 8th of June—Abduction of the regalia by the royalists—Author obtains a ticket of admission to the gallery of the Chamber of Deputies, to witness the ceremony—Grenadiers of the Old Guard—Enthusiasm of the military, and comparative quiescence of the other ranks—Entrance of Napoleon into the Chamber—Sketch of his appearance and that of Madame Mère—Administration of the oath of allegiance—The Duke of Otranto and Count Thibaudeau—The imperial speech and its ineffective delivery.
The days rolled on, and in their train brought summer and the month of June, on the 8th of which the peers and deputies of the legislative body were summoned to attend collectively at two o’clock in the Chamber of Deputies, to receive the emperor, and take the oath of fidelity to him and to the constitution, in the midst of all the splendor which the brilliant metropolis of France could supply. The abduction of the regalia by some friends of King Louis, when they ran away to Ghent, had left Napoleon without any crown wherewith to gratify the vanity of a people at all times devoted to every species of spectacle; he had only a button and loop of brilliants which fastened up his Spanish hat, over the sides whereof an immense plumage hung nodding. But this was such a scene, and such an occasion, that a wreath of laurel would have become the brow of Napoleon far better than all the diamonds in the universe!—The whole of the imperial family were to be present.
The number of persons who could be admitted as spectators into the gallery was necessarily very limited: and in a great metropolis where every body is devoted to show, the difficulty of procuring admission would, I conceived, be of course proportionably great. It may be well imagined that I was indefatigable in seeking to obtain tickets, as this spectacle was calculated to throw every thing besides that I had witnessed in Paris completely into the back-ground;—and what tended still more to whet the edge of my curiosity, was the reflection that it would, in all probability, be the last opportunity I should have of deliberately viewing the emperor, whose departure from Paris to join the army was immediately contemplated.
I therefore made interest with every body I knew; I even wrote to the authorities; and, in short, left no means whatever untried which suggested themselves to me. At length, when I began to think my chance but a very poor one, on the day actually preceding the ceremony, to my unspeakable gratification, I received a note from the chamberlain, enclosing an admission for one person debout, which the difficulty I had every where encountered led me to esteem a great favour. I did not think that, at my age, I could possibly be so anxious about any thing; but I believe there are few persons who will not admit that the excitement was great, occasioned by the prospect of contemplating, for a length of time and in a convenient situation, the bodily presence of a man to whom posterity is likely to award greater honours than can be conceded to him by the prejudices of the present race.
The programme announced that all Napoleon’s marshals and generals, together with the veterans of his staff and the male branches of his family, were to be grouped around him; as were likewise several of those statesmen whose talents had helped originally to raise him to the throne, and whose treachery afterwards succeeded in hurling him a second time from it. The peers and deputies, in their several ranks and costumes, were each, individually and distinctly, on that day to swear new allegiance to their emperor, and a lasting obedience to the constitution.
The solemnity of Napoleon’s inauguration, and that of his promulgating the new constitution at the Champ de Mars, made by far the greatest impression on my mind of all the remarkable public or private occurrences I had ever witnessed. The intense interest—the incalculable importance, not only to France but to the world, of those two great events, generated reflections within me more weighty and profound than any I had hitherto entertained: whilst the variety of glittering dresses, the novelty and the ever-changing nature of the objects around me, combined to cheat me almost into a belief that I had migrated to fairy-land, and in fact to prevent me from fixing my regards on any thing.
The first of those days was the more interesting to France—the second to Europe at large. Though totally unparalleled in all their bearings, and dissimilar from every other historical incident ancient or modern, yet these solemnities seem to have been considered by most who have written upon the subject as little more than ordinary historic transactions. Were I to give my feelings full play in reciting their effect on myself, I should at this calmer moment be perhaps set down as a visionary or enthusiast. I shall, therefore, confine myself to simple narrative.
The procession of the emperor from the Tuileries to the Chambers, though short, was to have been of the most imposing character. But, much as I wished to see it, I found that by such an attempt I might lose my place in the gallery of the Chamber, and, consequently, the view of the inauguration scene.—At 11 o’clock, therefore, I brought my family to a house on the Quay, for which I had previously paid dearly; and where having placed them at a window, I repaired myself to the Chamber of Deputies, in company of a French colonel, who had been introduced to us by Colonel Gowen, and who kindly undertook to be my usher, and to point out to me the most celebrated warriors and generals of the guard and army, who in groups promenaded the courts and gardens of the senate-house, awaiting the appointed hour for parading to receive the emperor. This gentleman introduced me to several officers and persons of rank; and though at that moment war, attended by all its horrors, was deemed inevitable, I was addressed with a courtesy and gentlemanly frankness which, under similar circumstances, would in any other country, I fear, have been wanting. They spoke without reserve of the tremendous struggle about to be commenced; but not a man of them appeared to me to have a single doubt of triumphing; and had my own country been neutral or uninterested, I certainly should have preferred the brilliance of Napoleon’s despotism to the contracted, glimmering tyranny of his continental enemies. But I knew that Great Britain was implicated. Napoleon and England might coalesce for a moment; but I felt that the ascendency of the former was considered as incompatible with the power of the latter, and I was chilled by the reflection, which in some degree abated my relish for the striking scene before me.