forever banished from French soil--this same
Cambaceres, was now the first to salute Bonaparte with "imperial
majesty," and with the little word, so full of significance, "sire." He
rewarded Cambaceres, for this by writing to him on the game day, and
appointing him high constable of the empire, as the first act of his
imperial rule. In this letter, the first document in which Bonaparte
signed himself merely Napoleon, the emperor retained the republican
style of writing. He addressed Cambaceres, as "citizen consul," and
followed the revolutionary method of reckoning time, his letter being
dated "the 20th Floreal, of the year 12."

The second act of the emperor, on the first day of his new dignity, was
to invest the members of his family also with new dignities, and to
confer upon them the rank of Princes of France, with the title "imperial
highness." Moreover, he made his brother Joseph prince elector, and his
brother Louis connetable. On the same day it devolved upon Louis, in his
new dignity, to present the generals and staff officers to the emperor,
and then to conduct them to the empress--the Empress Josephine.

The prophecy of the negress of Martinique was now fulfilled. Josephine
was "more than a queen." But Josephine, in the midst of the splendor of
her new dignity, could only think, with an anxious heart, of the
prophecy of the clairvoyante of Paris, who had told her, "You will wear
a crown, but only for a short time." She felt that this wondrous fortune
could not last long--that the new emperor would have to do as the kings
or old had done, and sacrifice his dearest possession to Fate, in order
to appease the hungry demons of vengeance and envy; and that he would,
therefore, sacrifice her, in order to secure the perpetuity of his
fortune and dynasty.

It was this that weighed down the heart of the new empress, and made her
shrink in alarm from her new grandeur. It was, therefore, with a feeling
of deep anxiety that she took possession of the new titles and honors
that Fate had showered upon her, as from an inexhaustible horn of
plenty. With a degree of alarm, and almost with shame, she heard herself
addressed with the titles with which she had addressed the Queen of
France years before, in these same halls, when she came to the Tuileries
as Marquise de Beauharnais, to do homage to the beautiful Marie
Antoinette. She had died on the scaffold and now Josephine was the
"majesty" that sat enthroned in the Tuilerie