doctrines, that they considered the splendid representation before them
as an unsubstantial pageant, which would fade away in its turn.
Bonaparte himself seemed absent and gloomy, till recalled to a sense of
his grandeur by the voice of the numerous deputies and functionaries
sent up from all the several departments of France, to witness the
coronation. These functionaries had been selected with due attention to
their political opinions; and many of them holding offices under the
government, or expecting benefits from the Emperor, made up, by the
zealous vivacity of their acclamations, for the coldness of the good
citizens of Paris.

The Emperor took his coronation oath, as usual on such occasions, with
his hands up on the scripture, and in the form in which it was repeated
to him by the Pope. But in the act of coronation itself, there was a
marked deviation from the universal custom, characteristic of the man,
the age, and the conjuncture. In all other similar solemnities, the
crown had been placed on the sovereign's head by the presiding spiritual
person, as representing the Deity, by whom princes rule. But not even
from the head of the Catholic Church would Bonaparte consent to receive
as a boon the golden symbol of sovereignty, which he was sensible he
owed solely to his own unparalleled train of military and civil
successes. The crown having been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon took it
from the altar with his own hands, and placed it on his brows. He then
put the diadem on the head of his Empress, as if determined to show that
his authority was the child of his own actions. _Te Deum_ was sung; the
heralds, (for they also had again come into fashion,) proclaimed, "that
the thrice glorious and thrice august Napoleon, Emperor of the French,
was crowned and installed." Thus concluded this remarkable ceremony.
Those who remember having beheld it, must now doubt whether they were
waking, or whether fancy had framed a vision so dazzling in its