ent of my family."[313]

The family, however, did not move. As happened with all the brothers
except Lucien, Joseph gave way at the critical moment. After
threatening at the Council of State to resign his Grand Electorate and
retire to Germany if his wife were compelled to bear Josephine's train
at the coronation, he was informed by the Emperor that either he must
conduct himself dutifully as the first subject of the realm, or retire
into private life, or oppose--and be crushed. The argument was
unanswerable, and Joseph yielded. To save his own and his wife's
feelings, the wording of the official programme was altered: she was
_to support Josephine's mantle_, not _to bear her train_.

In things great and small Napoleon carried his point. Although
Roederer pleaded long and earnestly that Joseph and Louis should come
next to the Emperor in the succession, and inserted a clause in the
report which he was intrusted to draw up, yet by some skilful artifice
this clause was withdrawn from the constitutional act on which the
nation was invited to express its opinion: and France assented to a
_plebiscite_ for the establishment of the Empire in Napoleon's family,
which passed over Joseph and Louis, as well as Lucien and Jerome, and
vested the succession in the natural or adopted son of Napoleon, and
in the heirs male of Joseph or Louis. Consequently these princes had
no place in the succession, except by virtue of the _senatus
consultant_ of May 18th, which gave them a legal right, it is true,
but without the added sanction of the popular vote. More than three
and a half million votes were cast for the new arrangement, a number
which exceeded those given for the Consulate and the Consulate for
Life. As usual, France accepted accomplished facts.

Matters legal and ceremonial were now approaching completion for the
coronation. Negotiations had been proceeding between the Tuileries and
the Vatican, Napoleon begging and indeed requiring the presence of the
Pope on that occasion. Pius VII. was troubled at the thought of
crowning the murderer of the Duc d'Enghien; but he was scarcely his
own master, and the dextrous hints of Napoleon that religion would
benefit if he were present at Notre Dame seem to have overcome his
first scruples, besides quickening the hope of recovering the north of
his States. He was to be disappointed in more ways than one. Religion
was to benefit only from the enhanced prestige given to her rites in
the com