In spite of all the plotting and protesting of the Bonapartes, Josephine was proclaimed Empress, and the law of succession was passed as it pleased Napoleon:—“The French people desire the inheritance of the Imperial dignity in the direct natural or _adoptive_ line of descent from Napoleon Bonaparte and in the direct natural, legitimate line of descent from Joseph Bonaparte and from Louis Bonaparte.” Napoleon was free to adopt either Eugène or Napoleon-Charles and make him his heir. The law mentioned neither Joseph nor Louis as heir. Josephine’s victory in this instance was as much due to the fact that she had made no protests about the succession and had asked nothing, as to anything else. Her seeming confidence (as a matter of fact, she feared the worst for herself) and her generous pleasure in the satisfaction those about took in their new honors offered such a contrast to the jealousy and faultfinding of the Bonapartes that Napoleon felt more and more, as he had often said to her in family quarrels: “You are my only comfort, Josephine.” Not only Josephine, but Hortense and Eugène showed themselves in all this period wise and generous. The two latter apparently felt sincerely that Napoleon did more for them than they had a right to expect. The gratitude and disinterestedness they showed was indeed one of the few real satisfactions of Napoleon’s life, for he seems to have believed always that they were genuine, something he never felt about the expressions of his own family. Not only was the law of succession fixed to Josephine’s satisfaction; but to her unspeakable joy, Napoleon finally told her that she was to be crowned at the same time as he. In the new government she had no political rights, but in this supreme ceremony she should share. Here again it may have been as much family opposition as love for Josephine and desire to associate her with himself in this greatest of royal spectacles that finally led Napoleon to this decision. Just as before the proclamation of the Empire the Bonapartes quarreled about the succession, now they tormented the Emperor about their positions and their privileges. “One would think,” he said testily one day to Caroline, when she was upbraiding him for not according to his sisters the honors due them, “that I had robbed you of the inheritance of the late King, our father.” Joseph did not hesitate to say sarcastic things, even in official gatherings, about the impropriety of crowning a woman who had given her husband no successor. Napoleon stood it for some time, and finally in a violent outburst of passion silenced him at least for the time. The announcement that Josephine was to be crowned, and that her sisters-in-law were to carry the train of her robe, caused still further heart-burnings, but the fiat had gone forth and everybody finally submitted.