ses comprised the finest
musicians of Paris. Two orchestras with four choruses, including more
than three hundred musicians, were led, the one by M. Persuis, the other
by M. Rey, both leaders of the Emperor's bands. M. Lais, first singer to
his Majesty, M. Kreutzer, and M. Baillot, first violinists of the same
rank, had gathered the finest talent which the imperial chapel, the
opera, and the grand lyric theaters possessed, either as instrumental
players or male and female singers. Innumerable military bands, under
the direction of M. Lesuem, executed heroic marches, one of which,
ordered by the Emperor from M. Lesueur for the army of Boulogne, is still
to-day, according to the judgment of connoisseurs, worthy to stand in the
first rank of the most beautiful and most imposing musical compositions.
As for me, this music affected me to such an extent that I became pale
and trembling, and convulsive tremors ran through all my body while
listening to it.

His Majesty would not allow the Pope to touch the crown, but placed it on
his head himself. It was a golden diadem, formed of oak and laurel
leaves. His Majesty then took the crown intended for the Empress, and,
having donned it himself for a few moments, placed it on the brow of his
august wife, who knelt before him. Her agitation was so great that she
shed tears, and, rising, fixed on the Emperor a look of tenderness and
gratitude; and the Emperor returned her glance without abating in the
least degree the dignity required by such an imposing ceremony before so
many witnesses.

In spite of this constraint their hearts understood each other in the
midst of the brilliancy and applause of the assembly, and assuredly no
idea of divorce entered the Emperor's mind at that moment; and, for my
part, I am very sure that this cruel separation would never have taken
place if her Majesty the Empress could have borne children, or even if
the young Napoleon, son of the King of Holland and Queen Hortense, had
not died just at the time the Emperor had decided to adopt him. Yet I
must admit that the fear, or rather the certainty, of Josephine not
bearing him an heir to the throne, drove the Emperor to despair; and I
have many times heard him pause suddenly in the midst of his work, and
exclaim with chagrin, "To whom shall I leave all this?"

After the mass, his Excellency, Cardinal Fesch, grand almoner of France,
bore the Book of the Gospels to the Emperor, who thereupon, from his
thro