World's Best Histories Part 5

The clever manoeuvre of Fouche gave Napoleon the opportunity of declaring himself; he wished to be invited to speak. His answer was not, and could not, be ready; he asked of the Senate time to reflect. Meanwhile he set himself to sound the courts of Europe. On the morrow of the insult he had offered to all the sovereigns by the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, their good-will was doubtful: the earnest adhesion of Prussia and Austria astonished and satisfied him; he was at war with England, embroiled with Russia; the rest of Europe seemed to be at his feet. Clever at managing those of whom he had need, he wished to a.s.sure himself of the disposition of the army still agitated by the arrest of Moreau. He wrote to General Soult, who commanded the camp of Saint Omer: "Citizen General Soult, I have received your letter. The Councils-General of the departments, the Electoral Colleges, and all the great bodies of the State, ask that an end should be at last put to the hopes of the Bourbons, by placing the republic in safety from the shocks of elections and the uncertainty of the life of a single man. But up to this moment I have decided upon nothing; meanwhile I desire that you should instruct me in great detail as to the opinion of the army on a measure of this nature. You perceive that I would not be drawn into it except with the sole object of the nation's interest, for the French people have made me so great and so powerful that I can desire nothing more."

The malcontents in the army were silent; the ambitious, the courtiers, the faithful and devoted servants of the great general, brought him the protestation of their devotion; the addresses from the departments succeeded each other in great numbers. On April 25 the First Consul sent a message to the Senate: "Your address of the 6th Germinal has not ceased to be present to my thoughts," said he. "You have judged the hereditary succession of the chief magistrate to be necessary to shelter the French people from the plots of our enemies, and the agitation born of rival ambitions. Many of our inst.i.tutions have at the same time appeared to you to require to be improved in order to a.s.sure without reversal the triumph of equality and public liberty, and to offer to the government and the nation the double guarantee of which they have need. In proportion as I have fixed my attention on these great objects, I have perceived more and more that, under circ.u.mstances as novel as they are important, the counsels of your wisdom and of your experience are necessary to me in order to fix all my ideas. I invite you then to let me become completely acquainted with all your thoughts. I desire that on the 14th July this year we shall be able to say to the French people: Fifteen years ago, by a spontaneous movement, you rushed to arms; you required liberty, equality, and glory. To-day, this best of all national wealth, a.s.sured to you without fear of reversal, is protected from all tempests. Inst.i.tutions conceived and commenced in the midst of the storms of internal and external war, developed with constancy, have been brought to their climax amidst the noise of the efforts and plots of our mortal enemies, by the adoption of all that the experience of ages and of peoples has demonstrated as fit to guarantee the laws which the nation has judged necessary for its dignity, its liberty, and its honor."

On the day following the 14th of July, 1789, the Duc de Rochefoucauld said, with prophetic sadness, "It is very difficult to enter into true liberty by such a gate." General Bonaparte was destined to confirm this solemn truth, so often and so sorrowfully misunderstood by our country.

France, exhausted and disgusted by the enthusiasms of demagogy and the b.l.o.o.d.y tyranny of the Terror, had been tossed by shock after shock into the arms of the conqueror who promised her order and energy in government; she had forgotten for a time those great and salutary conquests of the liberty which she unreservedly yielded up at his feet.

By a tardy return towards the convictions of the past, Carnot alone raised his voice in the Tribunate to recall the Republic, abandoned by all, in the name of that liberty which he wrongly attributed to it. "Was liberty then always to be shown to man without his being able to enjoy it? Was it ceaselessly offered for his desires, like a fruit to which he could not stretch forth his hand without being in danger of death? No! I cannot consent to regard this gift, so universally preferable to all others, without which the others are nothing, as a simple illusion. My heart tells me that liberty is possible, that its rule is easy and more stable than any arbitrary or oligarchic government. You say that Bonaparte has effected the salvation of his country, that he has restored public liberty; is it then a recompense to offer up to him this same liberty as a sacrifice?"

On the 3rd of May, on the proposal of Curee and the report of Jard- Panvillier, the Tribunate sent to the Senate a proposal to the effect: "Firstly, that Napoleon Bonaparte, at present Consul for life, be appointed Emperor, and in this capacity entrusted with the government of the French Republic. Secondly, that the t.i.tle of Emperor and the imperial power be hereditary in his family, from male to male, in order of primogeniture. Thirdly and lastly, that in deciding as regards the organization of the const.i.tuted authorities upon the modifications required by the establishment of hereditary power--equality, liberty, and the rights of the people, be preserved in their integrity."

The Senate was resolved not to lose the fruits of its initiative; the project of the senatus-consultum was ready, and was immediately carried to the First Consul, accompanied by the views of all the great bodies of the State. When it returned to the Senate, amended and modified by the will of the supreme chief, the authority which the senators had sought to arrogate to themselves had been taken away. "The senators, if they were allowed to do it, would go on to absorb the Corps Legislatif, and, who knows? perhaps even to restore the Bourbons," said the First Consul to the Council of State. "They wish at once to legislate, to judge, and to govern. Such a union of powers would be monstrous; I shall not suffer it!" The Tribunate ceased to exist as an a.s.sembly, and could no longer discuss except in sections; the Corps Legislatif were permitted to debate in secret committees only. A High Court was to be const.i.tuted, to judge the crimes of personages too important for the jurisdictions of ordinary tribunals.

In order to satisfy the vanity of Joseph and Louis Bonaparte, alone ent.i.tled to the succession of the empire, two officers were borrowed from the const.i.tution devised by Sieyes, and from mediaeval history; the one became Grand Elector, and the other Constable. Sagacious and docile counsellor of the First Consul in their apparent equality, Cambaceres was appointed arch-chancellor of the empire, and Lebrun became arch-treasurer.

Four honorary marshals [Footnote: Kellermann, Perignon, Lefevre, Serurier.] and fourteen active marshals [Footnote: Murat, Berthier, Ma.s.sena, Lannes, Soult, Brune, Ney, Augereau, Moncey, Mortier, Davout, Jourdan, Bernadotte, Bessieres.] were grouped around the restored throne.

Alone and beforehand the Senate decided upon the destinies of France, arrogantly called upon to ratify decisions over which it exercised no authority; on May 19th, 1804, at the close of the sitting, all the senators went together to St. Cloud, and by the voice of Cambaceres prayed his _Imperial Majesty_ that the organic arrangements might come into force immediately. "For the glory, as for the happiness of the country, we proclaim at this very moment Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of the French."

Those present cried, "Long live the Emperor!" Only the sanction of the law of hereditary succession was submitted to the popular vote. By the force of his genius as much as by the splendor of his military glory, Napoleon had conquered France more completely than Italy or Egypt.

CHAPTER VIII.

GLORY AND SUCCESS (1804-1805).

On the eve of the declaration of the Senate in favor of the empire, Cambaceres had said to Lebrun, "All is over! the monarchy is re- established! But I have a presentiment that what they are now constructing will not be durable. We made war upon Europe to give it republics, which should be daughters of the French Republic; now we shall make it to give Europe monarchs, sons or brothers of ours; and France, exhausted, will finally succ.u.mb to such fatal attempts."

A year before that, when the consulship for life was proclaimed, the wise and virtuous Tronchet, when a sorrowful witness of the revolutionary crimes against which he had defended King Louis XVI., had shown the same inquietude and fatal presentiment. "This young man begins like Caesar," he said of General Bonaparte; "I am afraid he may end as he did."

The daggers of the Roman conspirators had arrested Caesar in his course.

Napoleon had found neither a Brutus nor a Ca.s.sius: he reigned without contest, by a triumphal acclamation of 3,572,329 suffrages against 2569 "Noes." The country was eager to salute its new master, with a curiosity mixed with confidence in the unexpected resources of his genius. The courtiers alone around him who had found no place in the prodigal distribution of honors, muttered their murmurs. They served him nevertheless; and Talleyrand remained minister of foreign affairs, even when all the important posts of the empire had escaped his desires.

With more calmness and pride than the courtiers, Moreau and the royalist conspirators waited in prison for their verdict. Napoleon was as eager as they were, being in haste to rid himself of an embarra.s.sment which could become a danger. In proportion as the trial proceeded, Moreau's case was more and more kept distinct from that of the other prisoners. The mode of defence adopted by the royalists tended entirely to prove his innocence.

"We entered France," they said, "deceived by false reports, and with the hope of securing our restoration: General Moreau refused us his a.s.sistance, and our project failed." The general did not appear disturbed by the irregular jurisdiction to which his case was to be referred.

"Strive," he wrote to his wife, "to make sure that those who are to judge me are just men, incapable of betraying their conscience. If I am judged by persons of honor, I cannot complain, although they have apparently suppressed the jury."

The public interest was lively, and openly shown, in spite of the evident annoyance of the emperor. The friends of the royalist prisoners were numerous and ardent; and, whether from admiration or indifference, the public believed General Moreau innocent of all conspiracy, and made excuse for the dissatisfaction or ambition which he might have manifested. The sharers of his renown--Dessoles, Gouvion St. Cyr, Macdonald, Lecourbe-- were faithfully present at every sitting. I borrow from the interesting recollections of Madame Recamier the picture of the spectacle then seen in the hall of the Palace of Justice, every approach to which was choked by the crowd. "The prisoners, of whom there were forty-seven, were for the most part unknown to each other, and filled the raised seats facing those where the judges sat. Each prisoner was seated between two gendarmes; those near Moreau were full of respect. When I raised my veil the general recognized me, and rose to salute me. I returned his salute with emotion and respect. I was deeply touched at seeing them treat as a criminal that great general whose reputation was then so glorious and unstained. It was no longer a question of republic and republicans. Excepting Moreau, who I am certain was an entire stranger to the conspiracy, it was the royalist loyalty that alone was on its defence against the new power. This cause of the ancient monarchy had as its head a man of the people, Georges Cadoudal.

"That fearless Georges! We looked at him with the thought that that head, so freely and energetically devoted, must fall on the scaffold; or that he alone, probably, would not escape death, as he did nothing for that purpose. Disdaining to defend himself, he only defended his friends; and when they tried to persuade him to ask for pardon, as the other prisoners had done, he replied, 'Do you promise me a fairer opportunity of dying?'

"In the ranks of the accused, Polignac and Riviere were still noticeable, interesting from their youth and devotion. Pichegru, whose name will remain historically united with Moreau's, was missing at his side--or rather, one believed his shade was visible there, because it was known that he also was not in the prison.

"Another recollection, the death of the Duc d'Enghien, increased the sorrow and terror of many minds, even among the most devoted partisans of Bonaparte."

Taken as a whole, and in spite of the embarra.s.sment caused by the persistence of two or three of the accusers, the public judicial examination was favorable to General Moreau. On being accused of having agreed to a reconciliation with the traitor Pichegru, he replied, "Since the beginning of the Revolution there have been many traitors. There were some who were traitors in 1789, without being so in 1793; there were others who were so in '93 but were not in '95, others who were so in '95 but have not been so since. Many were republicans who are not so now.

General Pichegru may have had an understanding with Conde in the year IV.; I believe that he had; but he was included in the proscription of Fructidor, and must be considered as one of those who were then proscribed. When I saw other Fructidorians at the head of the authorities of state--when Conde's army filled the Parisian drawing-rooms and those of the First Consul, I might very well take a share in restoring to France the conqueror of Holland. I am credited with the absurd idea of making use of royalists in the hope of regaining power if they were successful. I have made war for ten years, and during those ten years I am not aware of having done absurd things." When they laid emphasis on his interview with Pichegru and Georges, he said, "A quarter of an hour is but little for the discussion of a plan of government. It is said that Pichegru was dissatisfied; probably we were not of the same mind." On the president regretting that he had not denounced Pichegru and the royalists, saying that he owed it to a government that loaded him with benefits, Moreau exclaimed, "The conqueror of Hohenlinden is not a denouncer, M. le President. Do not put my services and my fortune in the same balance, for there is no possible comparison between the things. I should have fifty millions to-day, had I made the same use of victory which many others have done!"

Moreau wished to plead himself the cause of his life and renown. "It is only by my counsel," he said, "that I wish to address justice"--here the ill.u.s.trious general looked round upon the attentive mult.i.tude--"but I feel that both on your account and mine I ought to speak myself. Unfortunate circ.u.mstances, produced by chance or caused by hatred, may for an instant obscure the life of the most honorable man; and a clever criminal may keep off suspicion and the proof of his crimes. The whole life of a prisoner is always the most certain testimony against him and for him. I therefore set my whole life to witness against my accusers and prosecutors; it has been public enough to be known: I shall only recall a few of its epochs: and the witnesses whom I shall summon will be the French people, and the people whom France has conquered. I was devoted to the study of law at the beginning of that revolution which was to establish the liberty of the French people; and the object of my life being thus changed, I devoted it to arms. I became a warrior because I was a citizen: I bore this character beneath our standards, and have always preserved it. I was promoted quickly, but always from step to step without pa.s.sing any; always by serving my country, never by flattering the committees. On being appointed commander, when victory obliged us to march through the countries of our enemies, I was as anxious that our character should be respected as that our arms should be dreaded. War, under my orders, was a calamity only on the battlefield. I have the presumption to think that the country has not forgotten my services then, nor the ready devotion which I showed when fighting as a subordinate; nor how I was appointed to the command-in-chief by the reverses of our arms, and, in one sense, named general by our misfortunes. It is still remembered how I twice recomposed the army from the fragments of those which had been scattered, and how, after having twice restored it to a condition of being able to cope with the Russians and Austrians, I twice laid down the command to take another of greater responsibility. I was not during that period of my life more republican than during the others, though I seemed so. It is well known that there was a proposal to put me at the head of a movement similar to that of the 18th Brumaire. I refused, believing that I was made to command armies, and having no desire to command a Republic. I did more; on the 18th Brumaire I was in Paris. That revolution, instigated by others, could not disturb my peace of mind; but directed by a man surrounded by great renown, I might have hoped for happy results from it. I took part in it to a.s.sist it, whilst some other parties urged me to lead them in opposing it. I received in Paris General Bonaparte's orders, and, in seeing them executed, I a.s.sisted in raising him to that high degree of power which circ.u.mstances rendered necessary. When, shortly afterwards, he offered me the command of the army of the Rhine, I accepted it from him with as much devotion as from the hands of the Republic itself. Never had my successes been more rapid, more numerous, or more decisive, than during that period; and their renown was reflected upon the government which accuses me. What a moment for conspiring, if such a scheme had ever entered my mind! Would an ambitious man, or a conspirator, have let slip the opportunity when at the head of an army of 100,000 men so often victorious? I only thought of disbanding the army before returning to the repose of civil life.

"During that rest, which has not been without glory, I enjoyed my honors (such honors as no human power can deprive me of), the recollections of what I had done, the testimony of my conscience, the esteem of my country and of foreigners, and, to be candid, the flattering and pleasant presentiment of the esteem of posterity. My mind and disposition were so well known, and I kept myself so far aloof from any ambitious project, that from the victory of Hohenlinden till my arrest my enemies were never able to accuse me of any crime except freedom in speaking. Do conspirators openly find fault with that which they do not approve? So much candor is scarcely reconcilable with political secrets and plots. If I had wished to adopt and follow the plans of any conspirators, I should have concealed my sentiments, and solicited every appointment which might have restored me to power. As a guide on such a route, in default of the political talent which I have never had, there were examples known to all the world and rendered imposing by success. I might have known that Monk retained command of his armies when he wished to conspire, and that Ca.s.sius and Brutus came nearer Caesar's heart in order to pierce it."

When the pleading was finished, the emperor and the public anxiously waited for the sentence. The fact of the royalist plot being proved, the condemnation of the prisoners was certain, and the inquietude and hopes of all were concentrated on Moreau. "Towards the close of the trial," said Madame Recamier, "all business was stopped, the entire population were out of doors, they talked of nothing but Moreau." The emperor had informed the judges that he would not demand that the general be condemned to death unless in the interest of justice, and as a salutary example, his fixed intention being to grant him pardon. One of the members of the tribunal, Clavier, a man of great virtue and learning, said, on hearing General Murat's proposition, "And who will pardon us ourselves, if we pa.s.s judgment and condemnation against our consciences?" At the first deliberation of the tribunal, seven judges out of twelve voted for acquittal pure and simple: being afraid of Napoleon's anger, they sentenced Moreau to two years' imprisonment. "Why, that's a punishment for a pickpocket!" exclaimed the emperor in a pa.s.sion. By wise counsel he was induced to show a prudent clemency. Moreau, nearly ruined by the expense of the trial, and as annoyed by the sentence as Napoleon was, refused to ask any favor. "If it was certain that I took part in the conspiracy," he exclaimed, "I ought to have been condemned to death as a leader. I undergo the extremity of horror and disgrace. n.o.body will believe that I played the part of a corporal."

His young and handsome wife, being near confinement, asked for and obtained permission to sail to America with her husband, and when delayed at Cadiz by child-birth, was urged to set out on the voyage through Fouche's influence in the Spanish court. "Four years ago about this time,"

wrote the general, "I gained the battle of Hohenlinden. That event, so glorious for my country, procured for my fellow-countrymen a repose which they had long wanted. I alone have been unable to obtain it. Will they refuse it me at the extremity of Europe, 500 leagues from my native land?"

Moreau carried with him into exile the cruel recollection of the name "brigand" (ruffian), which had been formerly abusively replied to him, and that keen desire for vengeance which was one day to prove so fatal to his renown.

Of the royalist prisoners, twenty were condemned to death. In spite of Murat's eager pleading, eleven perished on the scaffold with Georges Cadoudal, equal to him in the imperturbability of their political and religious faith. Riviere and Polignac, General Lajolais, and four others owed their lives to the supplications of their families, judiciously a.s.sisted by the kindness of the Empress Josephine. They were all sent to prison.

Napoleon felt with more justice than Moreau himself that the conscience of the judges had been opposed to his supreme will. In spite of the silence which he imposed upon the organs of the press, more and more roughly treated by him, public opinion remained equally stirred up against the murder of the Duc d'Enghien. A thought which had arisen in his mind from the day of his elevation to the empire, gained fresh forces from the feeling of silent disapprobation of all honorable men. He wished to place a religious stamp upon his greatness, and instructed Cardinal Caprara to ask the Pope to come to Paris to consecrate him. "It is most unlikely,"

said he, "that any power will make objection to it either in right or in fact. Therefore broach the subject, and when you have transmitted the reply, I shall make the suitable and necessary arrangements with the Pope."

As in the case of the Concordat, the emperor's confidential advisers were not favorable to the idea of consecration. The discussion in the Council of State was lively, characterized by all the philosophical and revolutionary suspicion as to the pretensions of a power being invited to bestow the crown and thus probably believing it had the power to withdraw it. Napoleon had formed a better judgment of the profound and permanent effect of the condescension which he asked from the Pope. "Gentlemen,"

said he to his council, "you are deliberating in Paris in the Tuileries; suppose that you were deliberating in London in the British cabinet, that in a word, you were ministers of the King of England, and that you were told that at this moment the Pope was crossing the Alps to consecrate the Emperor of the French, would you consider that as a triumph for England or for France?"

The council had not insisted, and the court of Rome felt their force of resistance becoming weaker every day. The death of the Duc d'Enghien had caused the Pope much sorrow:--"My tears now," said Pius VII., "at the death of the one and the attempt upon the other." The French bishops who had not resigned had renewed their protestations against the Concordat.

The Sacred College, when consulted as to the journey of the holy father, were divided in their opinion. Five cardinals declared that by so doing the Pope would ratify all the usurpations of which the new Emperor of the French had rendered himself culpable; fifteen showed less severity, but all insisted upon surrounding the solicited favor with numerous conditions. "The actual advantage to religion expressly professed in the invitation which his Holiness is about to accept, but actually injured in the result, can alone excuse in the eyes of Catholics the temporary abandonment of the holy seat," wrote Cardinal Consalvi to Cardinal Caprara: "the dignity and honor of the head of religion both require it."

He also wrote, "The form of oath taken by the emperor raises great difficulties. We cannot admit the oath _to respect and caused to be respected the laws of the Concordat_, which is the same thing as saying that one must respect the organic articles and cause them to be respected.

_To respect the liberty of worship_ supposes an engagement not to tolerate and allow, but to sustain and protect, and extends not only to persons, but to the thing, that is to say to all forms of worship. But a Catholic cannot defend the error of false forms of worship."

Cardinal Caprara, as papal legate in Paris, and Cardinal Fesch, as French amba.s.sador in Rome, explained away or avoided the difficulties. The legate, always timid and easily persuaded, gave grounds for hopes which he was not always able to realize; the cardinal, haughty and violent, divided between devotion to his all-powerful nephew and his own restoration to ecclesiastical practices and sentiments, was at Rome lavish of presents and threats. He at the same time advised the court of Rome to claim the Legations, whatever were the scruples of the Pope to confound temporal questions with spiritual concessions. Skilful in making use of the real Intentions or wishes which he was aware of, without compromising his government by any formal engagement, Cardinal Fesch at last triumphed over the repugnances of the Pope by avoiding most of the conditions of the Holy College, and on the 30th September, 1804, he presented to Pius VII.

General Caffarelli, the emperor's deputy at Rome, instead of the two bishops formerly insisted upon. Still less explicit than his amba.s.sador, Napoleon gave no hopes to the holy father of the important concessions with which the latter was fondly flattering himself.

"Very Holy Father," said the emperor, "the happy result evinced in the morality and character of my people by the re-establishment of the Christian religion, leads me to pray your Holiness to give me a new proof of the interest which your Holiness takes in my destiny and that of this great nation, in one of the most important periods shown in the annals of the world. I beg your Holiness to come and give a religious character of the highest degree to the ceremony of the consecration and coronation of the first Emperor of the French. That ceremony will acquire a new l.u.s.tre if done by your Holiness. It will bring upon us and our peoples the blessing of G.o.d, whose decrees govern according to His will the lot of empires and of families.

"Your Holiness knows the friendly feeling which I have long had towards you, and must therefore infer the pleasure which I shall have in giving you fresh proofs.

"Thereupon we pray G.o.d, most holy father, that He may keep you for many years in the rule and government of our mother the holy Church.

"Your devoted son,

"Napoleon."

The Pope had determined to set out, being convinced that resistance was impossible, and hara.s.sed by a serious inquietude the importance of which was afterwards confirmed, and by the vague fears of a sickly old man. He was offended by the contemptuous terms which the foreign amba.s.sadors applied to the condescension of him whom they called the "French emperor's chaplain." His Italian subtilty was disturbed, and his natural kindness chafed by the dryness of the emperor's message. "This is poison which you have brought to me," said he to General Caffarelli, after reading Napoleon's letter. He set out nevertheless, obstinately refusing to take with him Cardinal Consalvi, in whose hands he had placed his abdication.

"If they keep me here," said he one day in Paris, "they will find that they only have in their power a wretched monk called Barnabus Chiaramonti."

The Pope's departure had been much hastened by the repeated urgency of the emperor, and his journey was so also. The time for the ceremony was fixed without consulting him. As Cardinal Consalvi said in his Memoirs, "they made the holy father gallop from Rome to Paris like an almoner summoned by his master to say ma.s.s."

On the 25th November, 1804, about mid-day, the emperor was hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau, and went towards Croix St. Herem at the moment when the Pope's carriage just reached that spot. The carriage stopped, and "the holy father stepped out in his white dress; as the road was muddy he could not soil his silk stockings by stepping on the ground." He got out, however, whilst the emperor, leaping from his horse, advanced to him and embraced him. The meeting had been skilfully arranged in order that the new master of France might be spared the annoyance of a deference which he considered excessive. Both doors of the emperor's carriage were opened at once, and Napoleon entering by the right, Pius VII. naturally took the left. The empress and imperial family were waiting for the Pope at the great portico of the palace. The emperor seemed triumphant. The Pope was full of emotion, affected by the kind reception he had met with by the people during his journey. "I have pa.s.sed through a population all on their knees," said he.

The Emperor Napoleon was not on his knees, and Pius VII. was even sensible of it. Several questions had remained undecided before the holy father's departure for France: Napoleon had resolutely disposed of them, and yielded only on one point. Still bandied about between his own uncertainty, the love which he still felt for the Empress Josephine, the intrigues of her family, who were opposed to him, and the pa.s.sionate longing to have a son to inherit his crown, he had been on the point of demanding a divorce a few days previously, but on the empress making the Pope her confidant their union was confirmed, and on the eve of the coronation, with the greatest secrecy, the religious marriage of the emperor with Josephine was celebrated by Cardinal Fesch. Pius VII.

declared that it was impossible for him to proceed with the ceremony of the double consecration so long as that act of reparation remained unaccomplished.

Those who had charge of the arrangements for the great spectacle, the Abbe Bernier, lately appointed Bishop of Orleans, and the Arch-chancellor Cambaceres, had frequently discussed the ceremonial of the coronation properly so-called. In France the peers, in Italy the bishops, formerly held the crown above the head of the sovereign, who then received it from the hands of the pontiff. "All the French emperors, all those of Germany who have been consecrated by the popes were at the same crowned by them.

The holy father, in order to decide as to the journey, must receive from Paris the a.s.surance that in this case there will be no innovation contrary to the honor and dignity of the sovereign pontiff." At Rome the replies bad been vague; at Paris the emperor had calmed the zeal and inquietude of his servants. "I shall arrange that myself," said he. On the 2nd December, 1804, the ceremony of consecration took place according to the solemn ceremonial, and the emperor, after being anointed with the holy oil, held out his hand towards the crown which the Pope had just taken from the altar. Pius VII., completely taken by surprise, made no resistance, and Napoleon himself placing on his head the emblem of sovereign power, then crowned with his own hands the empress, who was in tears kneeling before him. Mounting his throne whilst his brothers held up his robe, being compelled to that act of humility by his imperious will, and their sisters bore the train of the empress, the Pope p.r.o.nounced the solemn formula, "Vivat in aeternum Augustus!" And under the very eyes of the holy pontiff, the Emperor Napoleon took the oath in the form which had been so much opposed in Rome. His victory was complete: he triumphed over the old revolutionary prejudices, whilst at the same time confirming in Notre Dame, in spite of the scruples of the court of Rome, the principles of liberty acquired by the French Revolution.

When the Pope, sad and discouraged, at last set out for Rome, 4th April, 1805, he had obtained none of the favors which he thought he had a right to expect. The emperor was inflexible on the question of the "organic articles," making no concession as to their application. The statement presented by the Pope and drawn up by Cardinal Antonelli, the most enthusiastic of his councillors, was on Napoleon's orders replied to by Portalis, who was skilful in concealing the refusal under the grave phraseology of legal and Christian language. Urged to extremity, Pius VII.