The Court of the Empress Josephine | Page 9

acquired the appearance of a sovereign belonging to an old line, while he still preserved the language and appearance of a soldier. One day he asked the hereditary Prince of Baden: "What did you do yesterday?" The young Prince replied with some embarrassment that he had strolled about the streets. "You did very wrong," said Napoleon. "What you ought to have done was to visit the fortifications and inspect them carefully. How can you tell? Perhaps some day you will have to besiege Mayence. Who would have told me when I was a simple artillery officer walking about Toulon that I should be destined to take that city?" It was at Mayence that the treasures unjustly extorted from the German Princes were restored to them. It was at Mayence that Gutenberg's name for the first time received formal homage.
General de S��gur, In his Memoirs, narrates an anecdote about Napoleon's stay in this old German city. The Emperor had gone incognito and without escort to an island in the Rhine, not far from the town. As he was walking in this almost deserted island, he noticed a wretched hut in which a poor woman was lamenting that her son had been drafted. "Console yourself," said Napoleon, without letting her know who he was, and giving her an assumed name: "Come to Mayence to-morrow and ask for me; I have some influence with the ministers and I will try to help you." The poor woman appeared punctually. With delight and surprise she saw that the stranger was the Emperor of the French. Napoleon delighted to tell her that her house which had been destroyed by the war should be rebuilt, that he would give her a little herd and several acres of land, and that her son should be restored to her.
A letter in the Moniteur thus described the departure of Napoleon and Josephine: "Mayence, 11 Vend��miaire (October 3). The Empress left yesterday for Paris, by way of Saverne and Nancy. The Emperor is just leaving; he means to visit Frankenthal, Kaiserslanten, and Kreutznach; then he will take the road to Tr��ves. The stay of Their Majesties has been for us a source of lasting pleasure and advantage. The most important interests of our department have been favorably regulated. We have nothing now to wish for except an opportunity to show our gratitude, our devotion, and our fidelity, and the sincerity of the good wishes our citizens expressed by their unanimous cheers. The Electors, the Princes, and the many distinguished strangers who have given our city the appearance of a great capital, are now taking their departure."
This journey on the banks of the Rhine made a deep impression in France and throughout Europe. It must be confessed that no one has ever equalled the Emperor in the art of keeping himself picturesquely before the public. Napoleon in the crypt at Aix-la-Chapelle, face to face with the shade of Charlemagne is a subject to inspire a painter or a poet! At Brussels, in the church of Saint Gudule, Napoleon evoked the memory of Charles V.; at Aix-la-Chapelle in the Cathedral vault he questioned the shade of Charlemagne. And as he meditated on the tomb of the Carlovingian hero, so now do monarchs on their way through Paris meditate in their turn over his tomb beneath the gilded dome of the Invalides. They go down into the crypt, look at the porch upheld by twelve great statues of white marble, each one commemorating a victory, at the mosaic pavement representing a huge crown with fillets, the sarcophagus of red granite from Finland, placed on a foundation of green granite from the Vosges. Then they enter the subterranean chamber, the black marble sanctuary, which contains, among numerous relics, the sword that Napoleon carried at Austerlitz, the decorations he wore on his uniform, the gold crown voted him by the city of Cherbourg, and finally sixty flags won in his victories. The church of the Invalides Inspires the same thoughts as the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle. In the two temples kings and great men may make the same reflection about glory, about death, about the handful of dust which is all that is left of heroes.

III.
THE POPE'S ARRIVAL AT FONTAINEBLEAU.
The time for the coronation was drawing near. Napoleon, who had already received the official recognition of foreign powers, was anxious to have his Imperial title consecrated by a great religious ceremony, the fame of which should resound throughout the whole Catholic world. The first date proposed for the solemnity was the 26th Messidor, Year XII. (July 14, 1804), then that of the 18th Brumaire, Year XIII. (Nov. 9, 1804). But the choice in each case was unfortunate. It was hard to combine the memory of the taking of the Bastille with the coronation of a sovereign, and