there was an unobstructed view of Napoleon and Josephine on the back seat,
with Joseph and Louis Bonaparte opposite them. Salvos of artillery
announced the Emperor's departure from the Tuileries. Twenty squadrons of
cavalry, with Marshal Murat at their head, led the procession. Eighteen
carriages, with six horses each, followed, conveying the high dignitaries
and the courtiers. Bands played triumphal marches, and all along the way a
vast crowd saluted this sovereign. The procession starting from the
Tuileries by the Carrousel went along the rue Saint Honore as far as the
rue de Lombards, crossed the Pont au Change, and then along the quay to
the rue du Parvis Notre Dame and the Archbishop's Palace. Just as the
Emperor and the Empress were entering the palace courtyard, the mist,
which had been thick all the morning, cleared away, and the sun came out
glistening on the gilded decorations of the Imperial coach. The
_Moniteur_, with its official enthusiasm, spoke of "the orb of day
escaping, against every expectation, from the rigid rule of a stormy
season to light up the festal day."

At the Archbishop's Palace, Napoleon changed his dress, putting on his
coronation robes. This differed entirely from the costume he had worn from
the Tuileries to the palace, and consisted of a tight-fitting gown of
white satin, embroidered with gold on every seam, and of an Imperial
mantle of crimson velvet, all over which were golden bees; it was bordered
by worked branches of olive-tree, laurels, and oak, in circles enclosing
the letter N, with a crown above each one; the lining, the border, and the
cape were of ermine. This cloak, fastened on the right shoulder, while
leaving the arm free, reacted to just above the knee, and weighed no less
than eighty pounds, and though it was held by four persons, Prince Joseph,
Prince Louis, the Archchancellor Cambaceres, the Archtreasurer Lebrun, was
for the Emperor, who was a short man, a sumptuous, but heavy load. He
carried it, however, with fitting majesty. On his head he had put a crown