When the people greeted their new emperor with loud cries of joy and
thunders of applause, Napoleon, his countenance illumined with
exultation, exclaimed: "How glorious a music is this! These acclamations
and greetings sound as sweet and soft as the voice of Josephine! How
proud and happy I am, to be loved by such a people[14]!"

[Footnote 14: Bourrienne, vol. iv., p. 288.]

But his proud ambition was not yet sated. As he bad once said, upon
entering the Tuileries as first consul, "It is not enough to _be_ in
the Tuileries; one must also _remain_ there"--he now said: "It is not
enough to have been made emperor by the French people; one must also
have received his consecration as emperor from the Pope of Rome."

And Napoleon was now mighty enough to give laws to the world; not only
to bend France, but also foreign sovereigns, to his will.

Napoleon desired for his crown the papal consecration; and the Pope left
the holy city and repaired to Paris, to give the new emperor the
blessing of the Church in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. This was a new
halo around Napoleon's head--a new, an unbounded triumph, which he
celebrated over France, over the whole world and its prejudices, and
over all the dynasties by the "grace of God." The Pope came to Paris to
crown the emperor. The German emperors had been compelled to make a
pilgrimage to Rome, to receive the papal benediction, and now the Pope
made a pilgrimage to Paris to crown the French emperor, and acknowledge
the son of the Revolution as the consecrated son of the Church. All
France was intoxicated with delight at this intelligence; all France
adored the hero, who made of the wonders of fiction a reality, and
converted even the holy chair at Rome into the footstool of his