s, while on her brows
rested a diadem of the finest diamonds and pearls valued at more than
a million francs.[318] The curious might remember that for a necklace
of less than twice that value the fair fame of Marie Antoinette had
been clouded over and the House of Bourbon shaken to its base.

The stately procession began with an odd incident: Napoleon and
Josephine, misled apparently by the all-pervading splendour of the new
state carriage, seated themselves on the wrong side, that is, in the
seats destined for Joseph and Louis: the mistake was at once made good,
with some merriment; but the superstitious saw in it an omen of
evil.[319] And now, amidst much enthusiasm and far greater curiosity,
the procession wound along through the Rue Nicaise and the Rue St.
Honore--streets where Bonaparte had won his spurs on the day of
Vendemiaire--over the Pont-Neuf, and so to the venerable cathedral,
where the Pope, chilled by long waiting, was ready to grace the
ceremony. First he anointed Emperor and Empress with the holy oil; then,
at the suitable place in the Mass he blessed their crowns, rings, and
mantles, uttering the traditional prayers for the possession of the
virtues and powers which each might seem to typify. But when he was
about to crown the Emperor, he was gently waved aside, and Napoleon with
his own hands crowned himself. A thrill ran through the august assembly,
either of pity for the feelings of the aged pontiff or of admiration at
the "noble and legitimate pride" of the great captain who claimed as
wholly his own the crown which his own right arm had won. Then the
_cortege_ slowly returned to the middle of the nave, where a lofty
throne had been reared.

Another omen now startled those who laid store by trifles. It was
noticed that the sovereigns in ascending the steps nearly fell
backwards under the weight of their robes and trains, though in the
case of Josephine the anxious moment may have been due to the
carelessness, whether accidental or studied, of her "mantle-bearers."
But to those who looked beneath the surface of things was not this an
all-absorbing portent, that all this religious pomp should be removed
by scarcely eleven years from the time when this same nave echoed to
the shouts and gleamed with the torches of the worshippers of the
newly enthroned Goddess of Reason?

Revolutionary feelings were not wholly dead, but they now vented
themselves merely in gibes. On the night before the coronation