mmonplace.

All that money and art could do to invest the affair with pomp and
circumstance had already been done. The advice of the new Master of
the Ceremonies, M. de Segur, and the hints of the other nobles who had
rallied to the new Empire, had been carefully collated by the untiring
brain that now watched over France. The sum of 1,123,000 francs had
been expended on the coronation robes of Emperor and Empress, and far
more on crowns and tiaras. The result was seen in costumes of
matchless splendour; the Emperor wore a French coat of red velvet
embroidered in gold, a short cloak adorned with bees and the collar of
the Legion of Honour in diamonds; and at the archbishop's palace he
assumed the long purple robe of velvet profusely ornamented with
ermine, while his brow was encircled by a wreath of laurel, meed of
mighty conquerors. In the pommel of his sword flashed the famous Pitt
diamond, which, after swelling the family fortune of the British
statesman, fell to the Regent of France, and now graced the coronation
of her Dictator. The Empress, radiant with joy at her now indissoluble
union, bore her splendours with an easy grace that charmed all
beholders and gave her an almost girlish air. She wore a robe of white
satin, trimmed with silver and gold and besprinkled with golden bees:
her waist and shoulders glittered with diamonds, 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, an